A:The Northern Guild’s professional training is highly regarded and as such carries a reputation for excellence. With over 30 years in the profession and with affiliations and recognition with major governing bodies, placement opportunities and internships, we are confident that our training will provide you with the opportunity to develop a truly satisfying and rewarding career within the profession.

At the Northern Guild, we recognise the need for our training to be flexible, in order to fit around our students’ many commitments. With this in mind we offer both evening and weekend training and we can also offer bespoke training routes and individual study plans to suit personal requirements.

We specialise in training for a new career that targets Accreditation and Registration with the relevant professional bodies on qualification. Our courses are designed to meet a range of vocational needs. A Northern Guild qualification will ensure that you are on track for employment.

When you choose to train at the Northern Guild you can expect to embark on not just a rigorous professional training but also on a profound personal journey of self-discovery.

A: As one of the leading UK training schools for Psychotherapists and Counsellors, the Northern Guild as a professional training and accrediting organisation, provides qualification routes onto the major Professional registers including the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), Professional Standards Authority (PSA), European Association for Counselling (EAC) and the European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP).

The courses that we offer at the Northern Guild qualify our students to practice anywhere within the UK under UKCP or BACP registers. This is particularly valuable as many employers, including the NHS, ask for UKCP and/or BACP registration.

A: Once you begin training at the Northern Guild, you could begin a placement as early as four months into your training. Ultimately, as soon as you have qualified in your chosen training route, you can then practise as a paid Counsellor or Psychotherapist.

A: The opportunity to go out on placements begins shortly into your training. Placements are important as they provide a professional environment in which you are challenged to apply the theory that you have been studying in an active and practical role alongside developing therapeutic skills as part of your experience.

You will be assigned a supervisor who will oversee your placement and provide support where necessary. Your supervisor is based at Northern Guild and supervision takes place there. The fee for supervision is payable for each session as you go. You will meet with your supervisor fortnightly and they will monitor and support your clinical practice with clients and guide you through your course.

A: Our Graduates tend to make a success of their new careers, which they find fulfilling and rewarding. There are a great variety of employment opportunities, which Northern Guild students have created and have been offered. Previous students have succeeded in a wide range of roles following their training with us. Graduates are successful in gaining key posts as counsellors and psychotherapists and do very well in their new careers often progressing rapidly within the profession. Many go on to develop their work through private practice or working in specialist services others have set up services within schools, the NHS and in a wide range of other organisations and settings.

It is worth noting that many students gain employment whilst in training as the quality of the training is well recognised.

Other students have set up private practices and consultancy businesses.

A: The training year runs in calendar years, for example, October through to the following October. On the weekend training route, you will be ready to qualify in 3 years. The evening training route is a 2-year programme so you will be ready to qualify in 2 years.This timeline is dependant on meeting course requirements. Once you have joined your chosen course, the first opportunity you will have to take your final assessment will be the November following the end of your taught course.

A: Personal therapy is an important aspect of training to become a counsellor or psychotherapist. Having therapy in this way helps trainees to understand their own thoughts, perceptions,feelings and behaviours. Through this process the effect is that the do not interfere or impact on work with clients, allowing the counsellor or psychotherapist to work maturely and with a deeper understanding of their own personality.

Personal therapy enables us to do the work by building inner strength and resilience and deepening our understanding of what it is to be human. We are then much more able to be in better contact with our clients as we are able to sit with them and listen to their distress.

Importantly, personal therapy provides a confidential space in which to discuss and process feelings that may arise in response to training and to client work.

A: The Northern Guild has a network of approximately 100 schools, GPs and charities that host our students on placements. This list is available to our students on Moodle. Finding a placement is an important and significant challenge along the students’ chosen training path. It is the students’ responsibility to secure a placement for their own training and there is no guarantee that the student will be accepted on to an establishment from Northern Guild’s network. Students will be assigned a placement supervisor to guide them thoroughly through this process.

As a training experience, the placement is invaluable, not only for the skills that are gained whilst in practice, but also for professional development – learning how to approach people to set up a counselling service.

To date our students have always been successful in finding placements.

A: Yes you can but first you must do an additional training. There are 2 routes at Northern Guild.

Basic training. This is a shorter module based training that can be taken in a way that is best for the individual and also gives recognition to prior learning. This training provides the basic competences that will enable you to work with children and adolescents and will lead to the award of the UKCP Proficiency Marker or meet BACP requirement for CPD.

Our Post Qualifying Diploma in Child Counselling or Psychotherapy (PQ DIP) is a bespoke training programme designed for counsellors and psychotherapists who are looking to extend their knowledge and skills to enable them to work with children and adolescents. The PQ DIP course meets BACP requirements for CPD and leads to UKCP registration as a Child Psychotherapist or a Child Psychotherapeutic Counsellor.

A: Some of our courses give you the option of obtaining a second qualification for a much-reduced fee. This option enables you to enhance your CV without paying the full cost of both courses.

If you chose to do this, you will be asked to complete a Registration Form before you begin on your secondary training route. You would also need to consider the additional costs associated with registering for a secondary training route alongside your primary course. This would include factors such as additional modules, final assessment fees and other costs to meet the requirements of the additional course.

This may also allow you to qualify and practice as a Counsellor whilst completing your DIP requirements.

One such option is the Additional Qualification route, which is a popular and cost effective choice. There is a one off fee (currently £150), payable upon registration for each additional course you choose.

For example, if you initially register on to our 4-year Diploma in Psychotherapy (DIP), you will already be covering most of the requirements for the Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling (DPC). By choosing to additionally register for the DPC means that you can obtain an additional qualification at a greatly reduced cost. This may also allow you to qualify and practice as a Counsellor whilst completing your DIP requirements.

Progression is another popular choice for trainees. For example, you would start your training on the 3-year Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling (DPC), and progress on to the DIP course, one further year, if you wanted to continue your studies to a more advanced level. You will already be covering most of the DIP requirements; this route will incur the cost of an extra training year and additional course requirements.

If your initially chosen route is the 2-year DPC Evening course then, following the second year of this course, you can progress to the Diploma in Psychotherapy. The Diploma in Psychotherapy will enhance your CV and open up a greater number of career options for you.