Hi Celia, sorry to hear you lost your Husband, but lovely to hear you want to help people recover in similar circumstances. We offer a range of course in psychology and counselling. If you are interested in counselling as a career, we highly recommend you take a look at our foundation degree in counselling which can be found via the following link.

http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/qualifications/x09

There are various roles in counselling. To help identify which role you would like to explore, please use the national careers service link below.

https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/job-profiles/counsellor

This particular qualification has been developed in partnership with the Counselling and Psychotherapy body (CPCAB) and will prepare you to become a professional counsellor by equipping you with the theoretical understanding and skills required to work in the field.

In order to register on to the foundation degree in counselling, you need to have completed the CPCAB level 2 Certificate in counselling skills or equivalent and the CPCAB level 3 certificate in counselling studies. You can do this at a local CPCAB centre. This qualification is limited to areas where the CPCAB courses are delivered. Please use the 'find a centre link' on the CPCAB website to see where your closest learning provider is located. http://www.cpcab.co.uk/

If you didn’t meet those entry requirements or didn’t fancy travelling to a classroom to study we do offer a range of psychology based courses. To become a practicing psychologist, you must study an accredited degree with a classification or 2.2 of higher and register with the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) of the British Psychological Society (BPS). There will be further postgraduate study required. Please use the following links for careers advice on psychology.

http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/careers/psychology

https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/psychologist

Many of our psychology degree courses are accredited by the BPS. The following link will take you to related courses. Please check the course accreditation via the careers link of your chosen qualification. http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/psychology/degrees

Please be aware, despite its name, our BSc (Honours) Psychology with Counselling will not entitle you to work as a professional counsellor as it's not accredited by the Counselling and Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body (CPCAB). 

I realise there is quite a bit of information there, as you said the final enrolment date for courses starting in October is the 8th September, you may wish to give us a call on 0300 303 5303 (Monday to Friday: 08:00 – 17:30) where a colleague in the support team would be happy to have a chat with you about the options available.

I hope this helps,

Dion