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When the pandemic put a stop to face-to-face counselling sessions, the industry had to rely on technology to deliver vital services.
Four years on, the legacy of this shift is a need to teach a completely new set of skills to students training to become counsellors.
The Lancashire & Cumbria IoT’s Preston College site is benefiting from this transition through investment in tech that will enable the counsellors of the future to develop these different skills. Preston offers both a Level four diploma in counselling and a foundation degree (level four and level five) in Person-Centred Counselling and Psychotherapy.
“It’s a unique set of skills that make the job different to how it would be in person, which used to be the gold standard,” said lecturer Ian Sanderson. “What happens if there’s disconnection on the call, how do you read someone’s body language over the phone and how can you offer the same level of service using technology? There are all sorts of ways that the industry has moved on and that requires us to teach a different set of skills because our traditional model of 9-5 in-person appointments has gone.”
The technology allows learners to simulate counselling sessions using video call, voice call and text, while learning the nuances of the language they must use and the cues they must pick up on.
“There’s an epidemic of young people with mental health problems and we need to keep up with new ways of engaging with them,” said Ian.
Level 3 student Jenna Ward said the use of technology was a great way to allow even more people to access counselling. “We’ve talked about the impact of this on people with agoraphobia or extreme anxiety disorder who might struggle to get to an appointment, and this could really help them,” she said.
“We’re learning how to text in an appropriate way and considering whether it makes you less professional to put an emoji in an email, for example. That might help you engage with some people, but it won’t work with everyone.”
Ruth Omokhui, studying on the foundation degree, added: “People with disabilities may not be able to read or see texts, so then we have to consider voice notes. It’s a completely different set of skills that we don’t have yet.”
The students praised the facilities used to teach their courses.
Learner Alex Hull, a Level 3 student about to go onto the foundation degree course, said the facilities were a stand-out aspect of the course. “The areas that we’ve got here are fantastic, it’s like being in a real-world environment. The staff are all really accessible and happy to help. I looked at a university when I was looking at courses but the set-up here is superb.”
Jenna said the course involved the requirement to complete 100 hours on placement. “We have really good spaces here to prepare you for those 100 hours, which means you know what to expect when you go out into the world,” she said.
Ruth agreed. “I’m a very practical person so I need to see something to really understand it,” she said. “Because we were working in the facilities here, I knew what to expect so I wasn’t nervous when doing my placement.”
In future, there may be other ways of communicating with counselling patients, so the transferable skills being learned on the courses mean tomorrow’s counsellors will be ready.
“There’s potential for us to use VR in future – or maybe become an avatar that pops up on video games like Fortnite to remind a player they’re due a counselling session,” Ian added. “It’s a fascinating shift and one we need to stay ahead of.”