Courses at SPTI are, academically and on a personal level, both highly fulfilling, and demanding. The type and quality of support we offer our students is therefore particularly important.

The role of a Programme Leader and that of the Facilitators is to offer students guidance (professional, academic and personal) and to give students the maximum opportunity to enhance the quality of their therapeutic work.

Fulfilling potential and enhancing the quality of life is what counselling and psychotherapy are all about: clients come to therapists because their potential for success, happiness, satisfaction or peace is not being fulfilled; they feel lost and perhaps desperate.  The therapist’s role is to help the client learn to find more of that fulfilment. The role of SPTI is to help our students to fulfil their potential for success in helping their clients, and meanwhile to enhance the quality and level of fulfilment in their own lives.

Specific support for students is available on training days, in the large group, in small group sessions, and for individual consultations where necessary.

The different areas of the course involve personal growth, clinical skills, academic success and the ability to relate well with others.  In all these areas there is a blend of the personal responsibility of the student to invest themselves in all these areas, and that of the Programme staff to support students in doing so.

In addition, it is a requirement of all our programmes that trainees/students be in weekly personal therapy. We believe this is vital for those undertaking a training that touches on personal issues for themselves and to support them the work with clients.

Similarly, we follow the guidelines of the main accrediting bodies in requiring that, once they are seeing clients, our trainees receive additional support for their clinical practice from a qualified supervisor. Again, we will be glad to provide names of supervisors.

We also support our students through the paper and online resources we provide, with the books, journals, case studies and research dissertations available in our journal room and library.

From your first day with us, through to the celebratory events after completing your final award, we aim to provide a welcoming, warm, stimulating and supportive atmosphere in all those areas that inform the very nature of the courses we run: the personal, the professional (clinical) the academic and the relational.  Our experience of involvement in this field goes back to 1987 and beyond.  Some of us have 40 years’ experience in enhancing the quality of people’s lives and helping them to achieve their potential and we would like to do the same for you.

Overview of learning and disability support

SPTI has a commitment to equity which guides how we enable students’ development and achievement.

SPTI welcomes applications from all students and works with Staffordshire University and relevant outside agencies to enable students with disabilities to fully participate in our training. Students with a range of disabilities have successfully undertaken courses at the Institute. Our training premises include a listed building and so not all training rooms are on the ground floor. However, we do have accessible training rooms and ground floor, wheelchair accessible library, refreshment and toilet facilities and we timetable rooms carefully to ensure that mobility needs are addressed. All of our training rooms are equipped with hearing loops. We also address individual requirements with students prior to training commencing and make necessary and reasonable adjustments wherever possible. Whilst we do ask students to give information about their needs in order to ensure the appropriate advice and support during training, our commitment is that this information will not affect the admission process and to ensure no discrimination occurs during admission and subsequent training.

We are Office for Students (OfS) registered. This means we meet the OfS requirements for course quality, academic standards, student support, student protection and more. Please visit officeforstudents.org.uk  for more information.

MSc students (year 2 onward) are therefore able to access student support and apply for a Postgraduate Masters Loan and Disabled Student Allowance via the Student Loans Company (SLC) gov.uk/masters-loan.

BSc students are able to access support and apply for both full-time tuition fee and maintenance loans via the Student Loans Company (SLC). The full-time student loan online application portal can be found by clicking on the following link: gov.uk/apply-online-for-student-finance

Students can apply for Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) if they have a disability or long-term health condition, mental health condition or specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia. Funding depends on individual needs and not on income. How to apply – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)