It’s hard to believe that we are at the end of another academic year. We hope it’s been a good one for you.

Here at CPCAB some aspects of our work, such as the regulation of counsellors, are more stable than they have been at times in the past. Other areas, such as qualification frameworks, are about to enter another period of change so, as usual, there is no time to rest on our laurels!

If you’re coming to the end of your CPCAB training course, we hope you’ve enjoyed it and will take the CPCAB values out in to the world with you. If you’re looking forward to the start of a new training, we hope it brings you everything you could wish for on your way to becoming a respected, competent counsellor – or simply gathering some useful inter-relational skills to use in another area of life.

Whatever the situation (and whatever the weather!) we wish you a happy and healthy summer.

Now available - new description of CPCAB Model

You can now download the CPCAB Model of Helping Work and Counselling Practice, the generic model applicable to all theoretical approaches that underpins most of CPCAB’s qualifications.

This new description integrates key contemporary research from both the counselling field and from other disciplines. Importantly, it focuses on clients and their problems, rather than the different counselling approaches. It also aims to be as student-friendly as possible, whilst still describing the complexity of helping work and counselling practice.

Although the description of the model has changed, its structure and content remains the same.

The model is in three parts:

• Part 1: Three levels of client problems. This defines the broad categories of client problems for which counselling has proved helpful.
• Part 2: Three dimensions of client problems. This describes how client problems can be best understood, and worked with, in the context within which they arise.
• Part 3: Seven helping and counselling processes. This describes how the process of supporting client change is associated with a range of contextual factors – including those concerning the client, the counsellor and the relationship that they form.

External Assessment results

From time to time we are contacted by students who are so anxious to discover their external assessment results that they can’t face the delay until the results are released.

There are many reasons why we aren’t able to give results directly to students, including the fact that we have no way of verifying a caller’s identity, but it’s also important that your tutors hold the responsibility for handing over the results. They are the ones with the relationship with the members of their groups and they are best placed to ease the pain of an NP result or, we hope, to share in the elation when it’s a ‘Proficient’! We do understand that it can be hard to have to wait but there is a process to go through that is designed to focus on the accuracy of the assessment, rather than the speed.

Many thanks for reading this and we hope you are pleased when your next results are published!

The Association of Christian Counsellors

Our congratulations go to ACC who have been formally approved by the Professional Standards Authority as an approved voluntary register holder, or AVR. CPCAB has a longstanding relationship with ACC and we look forward to working even more closely with them in the future.

ACC has confirmed that counsellors with CPCAB's Level 4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling (TC-L4) will be able to join the ACC Register via their standard ‘Qualification Route’. Currently CPCAB qualifications are also accepted as part of the criteria towards accreditation at all levels. The ‘Accreditation Route’ to the ACC Register is already open - see the ACC website for further details.

Humour

First therapist: ‘I’ve had to let my multiple-personality patient go’.

Second therapist: ‘Really? I thought you said it was a fascinating case?’

First therapist: ‘It was. But I’m fed up with him not paying his bills – he always claims one of the others has already paid’.