Camila Batmanghelidjh Foundation Supports Unique Course in Therapeutic Counselling
The Camila Batmanghelidjh Foundation has made a grant of £16,200 to the Wellbeing Faculty at the Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education (IATE) in support of the Humanistic and Integrative Therapeutic Counselling course led by Jocelyne Quennell.
The grant funding will be used to provide selected students a named scholarship, the Camila Batmanghelidjh Scholarship for Citizenship. This needs-based scholarship will enable these students to complete the final year of the five-year course, at which stage they will receive a Diploma in Humanistic and Integrative Therapeutic Counselling, recognised as leading to membership in the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).
The Humanistic and Integrative Therapeutic Counselling course taught at IATE was originally inspired by Camila Batmanghelidjh and was developed following her call for university-validated training centred on compassionate presence for children and young people. Camila wanted to ensure that therapeutic education, training, and practice prioritised the needs of children suffering from personal adversity, trauma, social and financial disadvantages. Camila understood that for therapeutic interventions to be effective, children and young people needed to be able to relate to their therapeutic practitioners. Her vision included providing access to qualified and well-trained therapists who were from a diverse range of social and cultural backgrounds, whose lived experiences may have in some ways resembled those of the children and young people they were supporting.
Counselling and psychotherapy training can be costly and diverse student groups have generally lacked opportunities to access university validated therapeutic trainings. To address this inequity, between 2010 and 2015, Kids Company provided scholarships to students and enabled access to high quality training and qualifications in partnership with the London Metropolitan University.
After the closure of Kids Company, Jocelyne Quennell sought to sustain access to training and qualification opportunities for diverse student groups. In 2015, she re-established the Humanistic and Integrative Therapeutic Counselling course at IATE, under an academic partnership with the University of East London. Since then, Jocelyne and her colleagues have continued to enhance quality and standards, to remove barriers to access, and to create new foundation pathways to invite people from disadvantaged backgrounds to train. This has increased equality, diversity, and inclusion from global majority diverse therapists, committed to supporting vulnerable children and young people. The courses, which are grounded in creativity, play, human relationships, and contemporary affective neuroscience, build on the work of the Margot Sunderland, Director of IATE, as well as Camila’s legacy of reaching marginalised children.
Recently, the course was recognised by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). After five years of coursework and training, graduates are able to apply to become members of BACP. This recognition was made possible in part due to the funding commitment made by the Camila Batmanghelidjh Foundation earlier this year. The grant will fund needs-based scholarships to enable students currently on the course to complete their final year of study. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds often manage a year of courses but rarely reach the stage of full completion and registration with a professional body. As they enter their fifth year, these students will have already completed significant coursework and training, earning four qualifications, which are part of the exit routes on the therapeutic counselling course:
Certificate in Therapeutic Communication Skills for Children and Young People
Diploma in Therapeutic Wellbeing Practice for Children and Young People
Diploma in Community Wellbeing for Children, Young People, Families and Communities
Diploma in Child Therapeutic Counselling
The final qualification which can only be accessed via the first four years is:
Diploma in Humanistic and Integrative Therapeutic Counselling
Holders of these certificates and diplomas are currently working with some of the most vulnerable and disenfranchised children in the United Kingdom, primarily in London but also in other significantly deprived areas of the UK. These practitioners are providing critical support to young people who may not have had their basic needs met and who may feel very lost and alone. They are research-informed, safe, and effective in engaging and supporting children who could become medicalised or criminalised. This includes early intervention and can be preventive for vulnerable children who could become isolated and neglected by the structural and systemic inequalities in mental health provision. In this regard, graduates of the course can connect themselves to a powerful lineage of thoughtful and civic-minded practitioners, including Camila herself.
The Camila Batmanghelidjh Foundation has made this grant not only because of the clear impact the course continues to make, but also in recognition of the determination of Jocelyne, IATE, and the Wellbeing Faculty team to keep the course going and to preserve Camila’s clinical and intellectual achievements. Their tenacity has been recognised as graduates are now able to apply to be members of the BACP. Likewise, these students have demonstrated profound commitment and dedication in the wake of considerable challenge and adversity. They have also shown social responsibility following in the footsteps of Camila’s devotion to unrelenting love. In completing this training, they will have become outstanding role models for children and young people to overcome their obstacles and follow their hopes, and dreams to fulfil their potential.