ITI Articles

The recent approval of Laidlaw College’s Bachelor of Counselling degree heralds an exciting new development in counselling training in New Zealand and the Pacific region.

Head of the School of Counselling, Dr David Williams, says the approval by NZQA has opened the way for a new generation of counsellors to be trained to meet the particular needs of people throughout the region in a way that honours their stories, their relationships and their cultures. The unique relational framework of the new programme equips counsellors to journey with people in the context of the relationships that make them who they are, and to do so in a way that draws from the best counselling theories, practice skills, and theological methods.

Dr Williams says that it is particularly satisfying to obtain NZQA’s approval on a counselling programme that is so theologically robust, and which is grounded in a view of people drawn from the richest biblical and evangelical traditions. “It would have been much easier to gain approval for a degree that looked like others being taught in New Zealand. But we stuck to our guns and have obtained approval for a programme that uniquely reflects the mission of Laidlaw College—to equip students and scholars to renew their communities with a faith as intelligent as it is courageous. We are thrilled at the prospect of training a new generation of counsellors with this programme as their foundation.”

Laidlaw College’s Bachelor of Counselling meets the requirements for provisional membership of both the NZAC and the NZCCA. It also anticipates upcoming changes in the industry whereby all counsellors will be required to be members of the professional associations.