Our Ethos and commitment
It is our view that the counselling & psychotherapy profession today is largely accessible to those with privilege; particularly white privilege & financial means.
We are determined to play our part in changing the status quo, starting with our own organisation. We aim to make our training as accessible as possible to all people bearing in mind their interest, commitment and motivation.
We are committed to training therapists who are willing to explore and acknowledge their privilege, prejudices and assumptions and who actively engage in deepening their cultural awareness and who see this as ongoing work throughout their career in the counselling profession.
RACE
The tutors aim to ensure that they and anyone involved with CCA takes responsibility for acknowledging, challenging and addressing their own privilege, prejudices, and biases.
We take an intersectional view in our training delivery.
We do this by being willing to listen, learn and change.
We are committed to ongoing tutor training and development as well as ongoing dialogue throughout the training experience.
We aim to be inclusive not by welcoming people into OUR space but by creating a space that is better for everyone.
This requires input from all and we aim to hold all members of CCA accountable to this – staff and students.
The CCA Directors are supervised regularly by Andrew Samuels & Anthea Benjamin
Andrew is one of the leading commentators from a psychotherapeutic perspective on political and social problems and is a past chair of the UK Council for Psychotherapy, a co-founder of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility and also of the Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy. Andrew is the former Professor of Psychosocial Studies at the University of Essex.
Anthea is Chair of National Diversity–Power, Position and Privilege Working Group at the Institute of Group Analysis and member of UKCP’s Ethics Committee in the College for Children and Young People
All of our tutors attend regular reflective practise sessions with Dr Stuart Stevenson.
These sessions focus on our own perception and experiences of difference and we are actively working to acknowledge and engage with our own introjected ways of being.
MEANS
CCA operates as a Not-for-Profit company. This means that any profit each year is directed back into the student community the following year via a number of bursaries of up to 50% of the total training fees.
We aim to ensure, as much as is possible that our training is accessible to people who do not have the financial means to cover the training fees.
ABILITY
We aim to meet our trainees’ different physical and learning needs wherever possible.
We have developed our course delivery, materials and assessment to meet trainees’ different learning styles.
We can accept both written and audio-recorded work and each trainee is actively invited to discuss their specific needs with their personal tutor.
Both of our classroom based venues are accessible for wheelchair users.
GENDER & SEXUAL ORIENTATION
CCA aim to train counsellors who are in an ongoing process of becoming safe hands for all their clients, including people of diverse genders, sexualities, identities, relationships, lifestyles and practices.
Our Diploma training includes a Gender, Sex and Relationship Diversity programme as well as a commitment to embedding this fully.
The course content is designed to challenge people’s ignorance, prejudice and biases, with curiosity and compassion.
We actively welcome applications from people of diverse sexualities, genders and identities.
BODY SIZE
People experience prejudice with regards to body size in so many ways, sometimes obviously and sometimes in subtle ways
We aim to ensure that whatever body you live in, you are welcome and accepted at CCA.
AGE
Whatever your age, your unique experience and perspective is valued and we welcome your application.
AND FINALLY…
At CCA we aim to draw on your own desires and passion for the profession and encourage you to develop your own personal approach to the counselling work you do.
We believe that our role is to give you the skills, knowledge and confidence to enable you to develop into the best counsellor you can be.
We give you the tools and help you believe that you can use them.
The training will teach you skills, and theories, in a creative and fun environment, and provide you with many opportunities to develop yourself personally with a strong sense of belief in who you are and what you can offer your clients.
You may find other providers offering this type of training, and they may be cheaper, but we believe that no other team of tutors will give you the same mixture of compassionate support and professional training from CSK-L2 to Diploma level, which we offer.
