Innovative counselling

14 December 2010

John Cowley. Image courtesy of BACP

The University’s Counselling Service has been recognised for its innovative approach to the provision and delivery of counselling and psychotherapy for students and staff with a national award.

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) awarded the service the 2010 Innovation in Counselling and Psychotherapy Award for its ‘Cardiff Model’ – a radical new approach to counselling in the higher education sector.

76% of students providing feedback in 2009-10 said that counselling had helped them stay at University.  Half of the students providing this feedback had had single session therapy which is one of the interventions in the Cardiff Model approach. 97% of respondents said they would recommend the Counselling Service to a friend.

Developed by the counselling team, the Cardiff Model moved the University’s service away from a traditional counselling format of weekly sessions with an often open-ended contract preceded by an assessment session and then a sometimes lengthy waiting period.  Instead, it introduced an approach that offers a range of targeted interventions which are timely, needs-based and in which the client is encouraged to become an active participant in exploring their difficulties, developing awareness and finding solutions when relevant.

Listen to John Cowley talk about the Cardiff model and the counselling services available to staff

As part of the Cardiff Model all new clients access counselling via an online questionnaire.  The questionnaire encourages self reflection and begins the therapeutic process by helping the client to look at their problem, their reactions to it and possible solutions. It also enables the counselling team to prioritise clients.  Every client is offered a ‘therapeutic consultation with a counsellor which examines the resources the client already has access to and develops a therapeutic regime. In some cases, there will be very little face-to-face counselling with around 57% of clients requiring only a single session. In other more complex cases there will be an in-depth response. What is avoided by this approach, and could be adopted in other clinical settings, is the long waiting time when the client hears nothing and sees no-one.

The judges praised Cardiff for its development of a counselling practice which while remaining client-focused is most practical for the age of relative austerity which all university institutions are now facing.

John Cowley Head of the University’s Counselling Division said: “Any service aiming to improve health should be equitable, available to all and effective. As a provider of high-quality professional counselling services to around 1000 staff and students annually, we are rightly proud and delighted to be this year’s BACP Innovation Award winners and to be recognised for our continuing drive to provide excellence and innovation worthy of a world-leading University.”

BACP is Europe's largest psychotherapy and counselling organisation with more than 32,000 individual and organisational members. The Innovation Award recognises work which has raised awareness of the benefits of counselling and psychotherapy, and work which has challenged thinking, stimulated debate or encouraged the adoption of new techniques within or around the counselling and psychotherapy profession.

Feedback from Clients who have used the Cardiff Model

The online questionnaire

“ …helped me to think about my own feelings and what I wanted to achieve before settling down to talk about them.”

“ …helped to clarify the important things I wanted to talk about.”

87% of students described the experience of completing the online questionnaire as positive.

The Therapeutic Consultation

“It was really helpful, as 90 minutes is a really good length of time to talk things through.”

94% found the Therapeutic Consultation helpful.

The Cardiff Model

“It definitely created a positive change for me and the way I look at things now.”

Images courtesy of BACP