QCA - Queensland Counsellors Association

Training Requirements

There are many new, exciting opportunities to train as a counsellor. As counselling emerges as a profession in its own right, both public and private providers have established dedicated courses in Universities and Colleges. Many excellent courses offer training for different approaches to therapy, for working with a variety of issues, and at a range of conceptual levels.

In this climate PACFA has developed a document on professional training standards and reached consensus on appropriate training for inclusion on the PACFA register of practitioners. These documents have guided QCA in assessing many of the courses in our region as suitable training for our members.

Those trained in other courses are welcome to apply for QCA membership, but more information may be required to assess the suitability of the course.

Experienced applicants with other than conventional training may apply for QCA membership under the Recognition of Prior Learning Policy.

Criteria

Refer to the PACFA Training Standards document on the web site www.pacfa.org.au for more information about the required content of training courses, and policies about selection, assessment, supervision, and trainer credentials. In particular, at least 100 hours of the training must be experiential.

In line with the PACFA registration document and previous QCA policy, training is acceptable at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels in the University system, with equivalence in other training institutions.

Training courses at postgraduate or specialist level (typically course work Master Degrees or Postgraduate Diplomas) need to include at least 250 contact hours over 2 years.

Training courses at undergraduate level in whatever system need to be at least 400 hours over 3 years.

Note that these are hours of counselling and counselling related subjects. This will not be covered in most programs in other disciplines such as teaching, nursing, social work, social science or psychology.

Required Professional Experience

Membership of QCA and registration with PACFA requires supervised experience in addition to the course work described above. The requirements are 750 hours of experience and 75 hours of supervision.

QCA Approved courses

There are several courses that have already been approved by QCA as meeting the length, standards and content described above. They are listed here so that applicants who are able to provide evidence of completion of these awards know QCA requires no further information about the content of the course.