In Year 1, you'll gain a solid understanding of the requirements for building and maintaining relationships with clients in the one to one and group context. You'll explore a wide range of contexts by visiting work places and you'll gain real life insights from experts working in related professions.
As you progress through the course, you'll develop your skills in mentoring, coaching and counselling to an advanced level and you'll learn how to examine, analyse and critically evaluate a range of interpersonal and therapeutically informed strategies and interventions to support others.
By the end of the course you should have a firm grasp of key concepts and theories underpinning the disciplines of counselling, coaching and mentoring. You should also be able to demonstrate a sophisticated critical understanding of a range of professional practice issues and developments within the broad remit of the ‘helping professions’ and be able to apply a critical understanding of reflective and reflexive practice.
You'll be taught by a skilled teaching team with specialist knowledge and experience in the disciplines of counselling, coaching and mentoring, related professions and research. Your direct teaching through lectures, seminars and group and individual tutorials will be complemented by use of the virtual learning environment, (VLE) guided reading, project-related activity and visits and input from professional practitioners and representatives.
Lectures will be used to underpin key concepts and initiate areas of study. Seminars, workshops and discussion will focus on developing critical thinking, enabling you to comment on aspects of current research and to devise, justify and sustain your arguments. You'll be expected to work collaboratively in pairs, groups and action learning sets for the purposes of support and critical reflection.
Throughout the course, you'll be encouraged to take responsibility for your own learning, and to develop a range of graduate attributes including (but not limited to): conceptual understanding of how to devise and sustain arguments and/or to solve problems using ideas and techniques; managing your own learning and making use of scholarly reviews and primary sources; preparing for future success through work-related experiences in small negotiated projects and in your independent study.