One applicant was concerned that they did not have a core mental health profession. Originally they had been a secondary school English teacher, and then later completed a 4 year psychodynamic psychotherapeutic counselling training....
Find out more about alternative routes into training as a CAT Practitioner
The criteria for application for a practitioner training in CAT, as outlined in the course information, are based on three areas of competency, all of which are necessary:
These competences are necessary because practitioner training is a post-graduate level training. In addition, the clinical supervised practice associated with most courses take place within the NHS. In order to ensure quality of treatment delivery and patient safety, you need to demonstrate how your baseline experience meets, or is a foundation for, NHS requirements for clinical governance. We therefore set the above criteria in order to ensure that the trainees who are accepted onto courses start at a sufficient level of knowledge, expertise and ability in order to be able to deliver clinical work in NHS mental health settings.
A CV and other supporting information is used to initially assess the above criteria and form the basis for offering an interview. The interview provides a setting in which these criteria can be assessed more fully, and as a composite whole.
You would normally be required to have a core mental health professional training. In addition you would normally need to have a minimum of two years post-qualification clinical experience in a mental health setting. Core mental health trainings include medicine, counselling and clinical psychology, social work, mental health nursing and occupational therapy.
You would normally need to have completed a basic counselling or psychotherapy training course of at least one year's duration. Your course would have included elements of both theoretical input and clinical experience. Additionally, you would have treated patients in a formal therapy / counselling structure under regular expert clinical supervision.
You would normally be required to have completed at least one previous course of a similar academic level as a post-graduate diploma or above. This will have included preparing and writing essays or similar academic texts.
While some courses will interpret the formal criteria in a strict way, other courses may have flexibility in assessing and interpreting the criteria. Many Practitioner training courses are based within NHS Trusts with their own policies and rules . Local requirements may bind the course within certain limits. For example some NHS Trusts do not recognise counselling or psychotherapy qualifications as a core profession. If so, they will not grant honorary clinical contracts to people having such a qualification alone. This may be the case even if it has been a substantial 2 or 4 year training.
Course Directors have to comply with the requirements and limits of their local settings. Course entry requirements may therefore differ from each other in subtle but important ways around the country. However, most Course Directors are both open to and able to apply some flexibility at their own discretion. If you do not strictly meet the entry criteria you may therefore wish to contact the Course Director and discuss your own situation.
If you wish to enquire, it will depend on your experience, aptitude, aims, role and support to train as to whether you are offered an interview, or able to be offered a place on a particular course. As CAT Practitioner training focuses almost solely on CAT, it assumes that applicants have generic knowledge and skills derived from more general therapeutic practice. The course therefore needs to ensure that you have sufficient generic skills. Alternatively, interviewers may look for evidence to suggest your skills could develop sufficiently over the two years.
An application will also depend on whether you have a job role or placement through which you can see clients for CAT for your eight training cases. You will need to be in a job role or position that allows you to see eight clients for CAT therapy for 8, 16 and 24 sessions over two years. The degree to which your employer supports this arrangement is therefore important. If this is not possible in your job role they may be able to secure an honorary contract to see clients for CAT in your own workplace or in the work setting of a supervisor. The arrangement for seeing clients for CAT may be a barrier to training if an acceptable arrangement cannot be found.
In the boxes below, we provide two examples to illustrate how Prcatitioner Courses may approach non-career route applications. These are obviously not an exhaustive list, but we hope they show what sorts of factors may be considered. Click on each to read more.
One applicant was concerned that they did not have a core mental health profession. Originally they had been a secondary school English teacher, and then later completed a 4 year psychodynamic psychotherapeutic counselling training....
An applicant for the Practitioner Training included in their application form that they held a degree in nursing and had 12 years experience of psychiatric nursing with adults. They had completed a counselling course 4 years ago and were offered an interview.....