Accredited training in the alcohol and drug field is provided by the Christian organisations listed below. There are other sources of training which may be provided by local or national alcohol/drug agencies. DrugScope and Alcohol Concern should be able to provide information about training opportunities.
Alcohol and drug problems are often part of a wider set of needs and require an approach that addresses issues such as housing, employment, debt and family relationships. Specialist training is available from other agencies dealing with these issues. Should anyone be interested in general counselling training, advice can be found below.
Christian Training Providers
(Qualification: Provision of externally accredited training and membership of either Churches Together in Britain and Ireland or the Evangelical Alliance)
Education and Prevention
Hope UK offers a range of training courses including some accredited with the Open College Network. Hope UK’s Voluntary and Associate Drug Educators are trained with an OCN-accredited course. Training is provided for those who have responsibility for children, young people and families as well as community and church groups.
Hope UK can recommend the Drug Proof Your Kids® programme supplied by Care for the Family. This consists of six 2-hour sessions taught by a trained presenter (one session per week for six weeks). Topics covered include:
• Why children take drugs
• How to educate children and young people to make good choices
• Prevention tools for parents
• Learning to intervene and where to get help
Counselling and Treatment
Life for the World offers four levels of training including a university-accredited certificate course designed for individuals working in their communities.
The International Substance Abuse and Addiction Coalition has contact with training providers in different parts of the world and would be happy to provide details to anyone interested in particular countries and/or specific training contexts. Some of this training has accredited status.
General Counselling Training
There are many universities and colleges that offer counselling training and there are a number of awarding bodies for counselling qualifications, CPCAB is one significant nationally recognised awarding body.
The main two nationally recognised bodies for general counselling are currently BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) and UKCP (The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy) which are both secular and the ACC (Association of Christian Counsellors) which is purely Christian. There are also many bodies which support specific frameworks of counselling. Furthermore, some courses are specific to areas of counselling, such as addiction, young people, couples, etc, and many require other previous counselling experience and qualifications first, so check carefully.
Diploma courses in counselling are usually two years in length and include a placement which may be provided, or that you have to find. They generally require minimum levels of client time (often 100 hours) and classroom time (approx. 240 hours in each year) as well as undergoing personal therapy. They will usually have minimum entry criteria which, without relevant previous experience, may require a further preliminary one or two years of study to pass counselling certificate qualifications before admission.
