Course Overview
Eligibility
Career & Study Pathways
Course Content
Foundations of Counselling
This foundational unit provides you with an introduction to the basic processes of counselling, with a focus on core communication skills. The unit will enable you to develop your understanding of the counselling role and the communication processes and skills that allow counsellors to work effectively with clients.
The Counselling Relationship
This foundational unit describes the structures and processes of counselling and the client-counsellor relationships. The unit introduces the facilitative conditions that form the foundations of the counselling relationship. You will also learn about the role of the counsellor in facilitating the client's own decision making and goal setting, and techniques for doing so.
Introduction to Learning and Behaviour Theories
This unit will provide you with an understanding of theories of learning and behaviour. You will learn about the application of relevant theories and concepts to counselling, with a focus on the ways in which knowledge of learning and behaviour can inform understanding of and response to client issues.
Lifespan Development
This unit will provide you with a broad understanding of human development, including physical, cognitive, social, and moral development, and the lifespan perspective. You will learn about key theories of development applicable to counselling, consider how development and developmental issues relate to counselling, and how developmental information informs counselling interventions including responses and referrals.
Counselling Frameworks I
This unit introduces you to two major counselling frameworks: person-centred therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy. The unit includes the use of specialist counselling communication skills (focussing, reframing and challenging), along with the importance of theories for developing understanding and selecting interventions within counselling practice.
Ethical and Legal Foundations
This unit will provide you with an understanding of the foundational ethical and legal considerations for counselling practice, including the core ethical principles and values of the counselling profession; ethical and legal responsibilities such as competency, duty of care, informed consent, and privacy and confidentiality.
Counselling Frameworks II
This unit extends your understanding of counselling frameworks, focusing on more recently developed approaches to counselling, including constructionist approaches (solution-focused and narrative therapies) and acceptance and commitment therapy.
Case Management for Counselling
This unit provides an introduction to case management as it applies within counselling practice. You will learn about current approaches to case management that are consistent with counselling practice and ethics (specifically strength-based and collaborative modes of work), as well as the processes of needs identification and case management planning.
Reflection & Supervision
This unit prepares you for undertaking professional reflection and supervision activities. You will learn about various foci for reflective practice (e.g., values, skills, and knowledge) and about strategies for engaging in reflection. You will learn what supervision is; how it can be helpful as well as indications that it is not.
Social Issues in Counselling
This unit explores a range of social issues of particular relevance to counselling, and which counsellors must be prepared to encounter in their practice. Specific issues include domestic and family violence, child abuse, and gender-based violence; self-harm and suicide risk; poverty and disadvantage; and health (including physical and mental health issues).
Counselling and Diversity
This unit guides your development of your understanding of various forms of diversity, including diversity relating to ethnicity and culture; sex, gender, and sexual orientation; class, wealth, and status; and age, health, and ability. You will also explore the concepts of power, discrimination, marginalisation, and intersectionality.
Collaborative Practice
This unit provides opportunity to gain experience through observation and exposure to counselling activities within an agency setting. This unit focuses on understanding the operation of the agency and knowledge of counselling work through observation of real-world application. This unit involves 50 hours of agency placement.
Common Questions
The tuition fee per unit is $1,590, and with 12 units in the course, the total course cost is $19,080 for 2026.
Students can pay using FEE-HELP (a loan scheme for eligible students), pay unit fees upfront each term via credit card, cheque or money order, or use a split payment arrangement where a portion is paid upfront and the remaining portion is covered by FEE-HELP (if eligible).
Yes. Students are able to apply for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) or Credit Transfer to receive credit for one or more units of the Diploma of Counselling Practice, up to a maximum of 4 units. RPL recognises relevant life and work experiences, and Credit Transfer applies to previously completed equivalent study. Credit will not normally be granted for formal study completed more than 10 years prior to application unless there is evidence of continued relevance.
Yes. Several units require a practical demonstration component, and the final unit, Collaborative Practice (DCP12), requires 50 hours of agency placement, providing exposure to real-world counselling activities within an agency setting.
The upcoming 2026 intake dates are: Term 1 commencing 2nd February 2026, Term 2 commencing 20th April 2026, Term 3 commencing 13th July 2026, and Term 4 commencing 5th October 2026.
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