Course Venues: Athlone | Belfast | Carrick-on-Shannon | Cork | Dublin | Kilkenny | Limerick
Throughout this challenging and unprecedented time, we remain here for you. We will continue to provide the excellent training we have become so recognised for and help you to continue achieving.
We are doing everything we can to retain normality for our students and prospective students and keep our learning interactive and experiential. Our lecturers are now conducting lessons through online platforms and we are committed to providing you with the best opportunity to further your careers within the areas of Counselling & Psychotherapy by rescheduling our CPD workshops and not cancelling them. We also aim to move a number of our CPD courses online, so please watch this space.
We understand that throughout this time of uncertainty you deserve clarity so we will continue to address your frequently asked questions as they arise and provide you with the following information on our upcoming courses and services.
1. Is the College going to stay open?
Happily, we are very well set up for continuing to operate during the coronavirus outbreak. We have an easy-to-use Student Portal with lots of learning resources; an online library for all students with free of charge access to a selection of useful, up to date textbooks and journals you can access from home; and our lecturers are already holding online live classrooms with existing groups through our free, online virtual platform Microsoft ‘Teams’. While face-to-face counselling training is our usual mode of delivery, our first priority right now is to keep everyone safe and at the same time minimise disruption to learning. Using online classrooms also means that if students or staff have to self-isolate but are well, they can still join in. Students also save their costs on travel and/or parking for a while. Our lecturing team are being very creative with the use of our live online classrooms and have continued to operate within our experiential delivery model. Our students are also being supported to remain active in client work via telephone/online sessions in response to this crisis.
Certificate Counselling and Psychotherapy | Blended Learning Certificate in Counselling & Psychotherapy:
All of our Certificate students are in the process of resuming classes via our online virtual learning platform. Recruitment for our Summer Certificate will open as scheduled and prospective students will be facilitated to complete either the blended learning version of this course or the in class version of this course, via physical or virtual classrooms, depending on what is permitted regarding government closures. This will be determined as soon as possible.
BSc (Hons) Counselling and Psychotherapy | Advanced Diploma Clinical Supervision | MSc. Child and Adolescent Psychotherapeutic Skills | MSc. Addiction Counselling and Psychotherapy | Post Graduate Certificate Family Therapeutic Counselling Skills:
The start date for these courses are mid-September to October 2020, depending on your chosen course, and we intend to start them on time. All attendance will be in College venues from the start unless we are otherwise instructed by the Government at that time, in which case we will start the course in an online learning classroom and join up together in person immediately that it is deemed safe to do so.
2. Will the PCI Low Cost Counselling service be operational?
Yes – the PCI Low Cost Counselling Service will remain open during this time. Clients will be facilitated through telephone/online counselling by our student and pre-accredited counsellors. All counsellors working within the service, including our student counsellors, will be fully supported by the Counselling Service Manager and their individual supervisors. Ireland’s largest accrediting body, IACP, is in support of the PCI Low Cost Counselling Service remaining operational and providing support for all who need it at this very uncertain time.
3. Will attending online affect the title of my award in any way?
No - your qualification and award will be exactly the same. Our validating and professional bodies, who quality assure and accredit our courses, have all confirmed that while this unprecedented crisis lasts, colleges will need to work flexibly on both the delivery and assessment of courses, including use of live online classrooms where available. We agree with this stance, because it means keeping students and their families safe, and because it will enhance inclusion and access to training at a time when people will be becoming increasingly more isolated.
4. Will my course be cancelled?
At this point in time, we are fully intending to run all courses as planned on the scheduled dates; as stated above, that will mean that you join the group from home via our own online classroom if the start date is scheduled in a period of time deemed by the government to be too risky for face-to-face training days. This is to keep everyone safe while causing as little disruption to people’s plans and learning as possible.
As you will be aware, the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) situation and government advice is changing rapidly each day. The above descriptions are an accurate description of our plans and intentions at this point in time. Should any of the above arrangements need to change, we will, of course, inform you immediately, and inform you of your options.
If you have any further queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us by emailing studentservices@pcicollege.ie if you are an enrolled student or enquiries@pcicollege.ie if you are thinking of signing up to one of our courses. Alternatively, you can call 01 4642268, or why not contact us through our social media platforms.
We hope that this answers some of the questions you might have and provides some reassurance to the delivery of your classes and our plans for the future.
We look forward to seeing you online.
PCI College