Training Workshops and Courses
Our sister organisation, Bower House Support Services, arranges training events for counsellors and others interested in the field of inter-personal relationships. These events are open to all and more details can be found on the BHSS website:-
www.bhsupportservices.co.uk/
We are currently running a CPCAB Diploma in Counselling Children and Young People. This has been very well received and will enable us to extend our provision for children in the coming months.
We can now report that this professionally recognised piece of training has run throughout our twentieth year and from March we significantly increased the work we do with children. We now have 10 counsellors who are qualified to work with children and young people.
To book, visit: www.bhsupportservices.co.ukAn extraordinary year!
World impacting events accelerate social change and the COVID pandemic is no exception and it is important for us to embrace rather than resist the inevitable. The trend of being able to access affordable Continuous Professional Development (CPD) was already gaining ground. The lockdown saw an explosion of high quality, inexpensive online training often featuring national and international gurus.
Just as the industrial revolution resulted in the masses moving into conurbations to access work, goods and services so the technological revolution, with COVID as a catalyst has allowed a large cohort of people to access what they need without having to travel to secure it. It is unlikely there will be a complete reversal of this trend and therefore organisations need to plan with the possibility of not being able to depend on customers behaving as before.
The lockdown meant BHSS had to cancel all planned CPD days and defer the start of the second Diploma in Counselling Children and Young People and Supervision Course we hoped to start this Autumn. Cara Thompson and Harriet Schofield successfully moved the Certificate in Counselling Skills, running between January and July, online. They are to be commended, with all the students securing their qualifying Certificate. While this worked with the existing group it is debatable whether it would be possible to attract sufficient interest to run it completely online from the beginning.
BHSS’s unique selling point has always been a local offering where we nurtured body, mind and sometimes soul at our events.
Stripping back to the online delivery of training it is difficult to see why someone would choose our courses when there is access to a plethora of high quality, often certificated events for no cost or low cost.
The BHSS Board considered an options appraisal and have decided to cease trading as soon as practicable.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported BHSS over the years. There is always sadness at the end of an era but also an excitement at the next chapter. Supporting the core work of the Bower House remains more critical than ever and hopefully some of the volunteer resource which went into BHSS will be diverted to the generic fundraising activities to ensure we are able to continue to serve the local community.