Working with children and young people (CYP) requires specialist knowledge and skills, so CYP counsellors need to ensure they are:

‘……. competent to deliver the services being offered to at least fundamental professional standards or better’
(BACP Ethical Framework, Working to professional standards, point 13)

What do we mean by ’appropriately qualified’?

Counsellors working with children and young people should:

  • hold a professional counselling qualification
  • be on an Approved Register
  • have experience of working with children and young people
  • have appropriate clinical supervision with experienced supervisors (who themselves have an understanding of how to work with children and young people)
  • take part in regular, relevant continuing professional development

Training and competences

Some training providers now offer Level 4 courses that are marketed as preparing practitioners to work directly with children and young people. When considering any core counselling qualification, ensure that it is substantial enough to enable you to meet the full range of BACP’s CYP competences and to practise safely and ethically. A core training should provide sufficient depth, supervised practice, and assessment to prepare a practitioner for work with any client group, including CYP. It should also meet eligibility requirements for professional registration. You can check BACP’s requirements for core training courses on our student membership web page. 

Counselling children and young people differs from counselling adults in terms of:

  • development and communication stages
  • needs of the client
  • method of delivery

It's important that counsellors have appropriate training, specific to working with younger clients of different age groups, to support their work and are able to demonstrate the competences set out in our Competences for work with children and young people (four to 18 years). 

Choosing training courses 

Our evidence-based competences set out the knowledge, understanding and skills required by CYP counsellors. The  training curriculum is underpinned by these competences and sets a consistent minimum standard to which CYP counsellors should be trained. We'd recommend that you choose a course informed by our competences and curriculum when seeking training to work with children and young people.

There are some specialist CYP core training courses accredited under the BACP course accreditation scheme. We do not currently have a post-qualifying CYP course accreditation scheme, although we plan to develop one. However, we will not stipulate a level of training for CYP practitioners, or insist that CYP training must be accredited, even when this scheme is developed. If a CYP course maps its course content to our CYP competences and curriculum, they and their students can be confident that the training covers all the elements necessary to prepare students for undertaking CYP counselling roles.

We do not stipulate the type or level of training needed to undertake CYP counselling roles. Many CYP practitioners are already well established in CYP work with years of experience and accumulative CPD and demonstrable competence to work with younger clients.  Our requirements for CYP practice relate to competence to work with younger clients. If a practitioner is trained and experienced in all the areas of the CYP competence framework to meet the requirements of their role, this is acceptable for safe and ethical practice.