Counselling Skills

The O P A L Foundation

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Counselling Skills

Courses aimed to lay down some basic principles of counselling in as concise a form as possible. Areas covered include problem solving, dealing with bereavement, listening and befriending skills and coping with crisis.

Effective Listening & Communicating

Designed for staff who work in a people based setting and need to communicate effectively in varied situations.

Participants will investigate and practice different forms of communication and consider the appropriateness of them.

Course COU1 One Day

Empowering through Support

Aims to develop the skills of participants in enabling their clients to take a leading role in the decision making of their destiny. Participants will gain knowledge of how to set up structured and positive support to meet this objective.

Course COU2 One Day

Coping with Crisis

Looks at the practical issues of supporting clients in a time of crisis. Addresses the effects of crisis on everyday life, how to set up a support network, when to intervene and when to step back. Participants will consider their own feelings in dealing with crisis situations.

Course COU3 One Day

Relationship Skills

Participants will learn how to listen effectively and relate to others with respect, genuineness and empathy, thereby creating a helping climate in which people feel able to talk through their personal or work-related difficulties.

Course COU4 One Day

Basic Body Language

Approximately 50 per cent of information on the character, impact and credibility of the person is conveyed by body language. This course will assist participants to recognise specific body language and how to use body language to change behaviour.

Course COU5 One Day

Goal Setting - An Outline of Egan's Model

Looks at the requirements for effective goal setting. This course will be equally beneficial for those wishing to improve their own skills in effective goal setting as well as those who need to support clients in achieving aims through goal setting.

Course COU6 One Day

Person Centred Counselling – An Introduction

Gives participants an insight into the non-directive or 'person-centred' approach to counselling. They will gain knowledge

in the areas of self-awareness, unconditional positive regard, empathy to others and non-possessive warmth. This will lead to a greater understanding of the philosophy of person centred counselling and how it can be used to empower the individual.

Course COU7 Two Day

Understanding Counselling - An Introduction to Counselling Skills

An intensive course with the main objective of introducing the participant to the world of counselling. With this in mind, the course aims to lay down some basic principles of counselling in as concise a form as possible. Participants will study a range of subjects related to counselling and practise basic counselling skills.

Course COU8 Two Weeks

Confidentiality within a Counselling environment

Allows participants to explore the meaning of ‘confidentiality’ when supporting or counselling clients. It examines the issues surrounding sensitive information that clients may divulge and invites participants to consider how and when it would be appropriate to share such information with others.

Course COU9 One Day

Counselling Contracts

Enables participants to understand the importance and benefit of setting out clear boundaries and agreements in respect

of the support they will provide to the client. Participants will learn methods that will assist them to support both the client and themselves in drawing up a ‘contract’ that explains to the client: what is meant by confidentiality, time management in relation to support/counselling sessions, appropriate sharing, any recording of information shared, amongst other things.

Course COU10 One Day

To counsel or not to counsel – that is the question!

Considers how people choose to remember the dead. Participants will look at six ways in which some form of immortality can perhaps be achieved. The function and practices of funerals are discussed. Some epitaphs are examined and consideration is given to the role of humour in death.

Course COU11 One Day

Ethical counselling practice

This is an intensive course, which explores a range of topics in relation to ethical practice. As well as covering the subjects outlined in courses COU9 – COU11, participants will also visit specific case studies and scenarios that may relate to their own working practices, which they will debate in order to explore and understand the moral and ethical issues that could arise.

Course COU12 Three Days

The Helpers Handbook

Providing a valuable insight of the skills and situations that everyone who is involved in helping or caring for others need to be familiar with. This course is particularly suitable for those who need support in basic counselling for specific situations and short-term encounters.

Course COU13 Two Days

Survival Skills for Carers

This course is designed to provide carers with an insight into a range of topics that are relevant in enabling them to develop and expand upon their skills and knowledge in the following areas: Help for Carers, Looking after yourself, Relationships and Feelings, Assertiveness, Benefits Money and Legal Matters, Setting up Support Systems. The course is aimed at those who are primary or informal carers and professional carers who have little or no experience. The course content can be adapted to cater for established professional carers who wish to update their skills and knowledge.

Course COU14 One Week

Understanding Loss and Grief

This intensive course is designed to enable participants to gain a wider understanding of the whole concept of loss and grief. The course is made up of ten separate modules, each covering specific elements of the subject. These include Loss, Issues surrounding death, Grief Work, Models of Grief (2 modules), How we grieve, The grief of Parents and Children, Complex and Complicated Grief, Special Considerations, In Memoriam. Each module equates to a one-day training event, some of which are available as ‘stand alone’ training days (see below).

Course COU15 Two Weeks

What is Loss?

Looks at models of loss and reflects on whether change and loss are life-long processes of adaptation. Participants will consider how attitudes to loss have changed over time, the importance of understanding as part of the task of supporting those experiencing loss will be evaluated. The personal statement of a dying person will be used to emphasise the need for us to take responsibility for supporting grief.

Course COU15a One Day

Issues surrounding Death

Looks at the contexts in which people die and examines the notion of a ‘good death’. Participants will consider the losses and needs of dying people and their carers, and some suggested ‘Rights’, to enhance choice and control for the terminally ill. Issues of awareness are considered and four levels of awareness identified.

Course COU15b One Day

Grief Work

Considers the concepts of grief work and the grieving process. The course is designed to give a basic insight into Grief and the processes linked to this to enable participants to gain a greater understanding of how and why people grieve.

Course COU15c One Day

Models of Grief

Examines grief and mourning in greater detail and will give participants the opportunity of acquiring the skills to offer appropriate support to someone who is grieving.

Course COU15d Two Days

In Memoriam

Course COU15e One Day

Bereavement and Loss – A Skills Companion

This course is designed to enable participants to gain a wider understanding and develop their skills, knowledge and awareness in order to support bereaved people appropriately. The course is made up of eight separate modules, each covering specific elements of the subject. These include ‘What is loss and bereavement?’, ‘Our responses to loss and bereavement’, ‘How to support and counsel’, ‘Factors that influence and complicate loss and bereavement’, ‘Situations we find difficult’, ‘Support and supervision’, ‘The importance of endings’. Each module equates to an average of one-days training (with a few exceptions) and some modules are available as

‘stand alone’ training days (see below).

Course COU16 Two Weeks

What is Loss and Bereavement?

Helps participants to explore loss and mourning and think about why we may need skills to help us cope more effectively when we are grieving.

Course COU16a One Day

Responses to Loss and Bereavement

Invites participants to take the opportunity to explore their own losses, and their relationship to them. Participants will consider the coping mechanisms that they adopted and how these may influence their ability and effectiveness in being with others who have suffered loss.

Course COU16b One Day

Supporting and Counselling the Bereaved

Aims to give participants the opportunity to focus on the skills and qualities needed to work with the bereaved. These skills will enable grieving people to ‘tell their own story’, get in touch with their feelings, express them when appropriate and work towards their own solution or healing. The course will not train participants to become a bereavement counsellor on its own, but it should give participants choice and awareness in their work with grieving people.

Course COU16c One Day

How can we use the tasks of mourning?

Explores how the concept of tasks may be of use in assisting mourning. The course aims to explore the realm of feelings, focusing on our experience of grief and ability to acknowledge and cope with our own feelings as this will influence how we cope with the feelings of others. The course will look at the need for contracts and boundaries in the helping relationship, and explore the spiritual and religious aspects of grief work.

Course COU16d Two Days

Factors that influence and complicate Loss and Bereavement

Considers the factors that may influence the ways in which we grieve and the difference between ‘healthy’ and ‘complicated’ or ‘unresolved’ grief. The course will develop participants’ skills in helping people who experience ‘unresolved’ grief to identify the problem of unresolved grief and support the person to seek professional support from another source.

Course COU16e Two Days

Coping with situations that we find difficult

Participants will explore some of the situations, which we may find difficult when supporting the bereaved. The course

aims to help participants to: understand how they have come to perceive and experience these situations as difficult, examine values and attitudes about certain losses, look at children and grief, both in dying and mourning, look at ways of coping with difficult situations, explore how to break bad news.

Course COU16f One Day

Support and Supervision for staff working with the Bereaved

Participants will consider the need for – and the aims of – support and supervision for those working with and supporting

the bereaved. Participants will also examine how being with someone who is grieving affects them and what methods of support they require to enable them to cope appropriately. The course will also consider the role that ‘supervision’ has to play in grief work.

Course COU16g One Day

The Importance of Endings

Looks at the importance of endings and ways in which we can let go and say goodbye. This course is taken

from the final module of COU12 and therefore gives an opportunity for reflection and moving forward. The course aims to assist participants to come to endings, use rituals and enable bereaved people to say goodbye and move forward.

Course COU16h One Day