IATE is a leading provider for validated courses in arts psychotherapy child counselling and child psychotherapy in the UK.
A highly esteemed Higher Education College of over 30 years standing
(please note early booking is recommended for our trainings due to limited numbers)
This is a UEL validated course
A Therapeutic Wellbeing Practitioner works through creative and relational methods to promote the overall wellbeing of children, young people, families and communities. This is holistic and child-centred, considering the needs and capabilities of each individual child in the context of their family, school and social environment.
If you would like to make a difference to the lives of children and young people the wellbeing course provides you with information about training and education at IATE in partnership with the University of East London. This approach is humanistic, integrative and relational, informed by therapeutic counselling skills, attachment theory, child development and applied therapeutic thinking. It is creative in considering the child or young person's human potential as an agent of change, collaborating through meaningful activities including: sports, arts, leisure, communications technology and complementary health. It is a multi-disciplinary approach sharing influence from youth work, social work, mental health, therapy and education.
The wellbeing courses are delivered by The Wellbeing Faculty with a team of over twenty tutors who provide quality teaching for students as well as a range of visiting lecturers, writers, researchers and practitioners to inform and inspire.
This is a UEL validated course
This practical skills-based training course underpinned by over 1000 evidence-based psychological, medical and neuroscientific research studies, is designed to inform and empower school and community staff to respond effectively to vulnerable children/young people who have experienced trauma and/or have a mental health issue. The government Green Paper, ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision’ (December 2017), states: There is evidence that appropriately trained and supported staff such as teachers, teaching assistants can achieve results comparable to those achieved by trained therapists in delivering a number of interventions addressing mild to moderate mental health problems (anxiety, conduct disorder, substance use disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.” This training provides the core skills to make this possible. The training also includes the knowledge and skills for cultural change resulting in mentally healthy schools and communities (for both adults and children.
You have a choice as to whether to do the University validated course Certificate in Trauma and Mental Health Informed Schools and Communities (Level 5. 20 credits (12 Day)
Or
Diploma in Trauma and Mental Health Informed Schools and Communities (internal validation)
Students are not eligible to receive both awards
Upon successful completion of this course, you are eligible to continue your training with IATE on the Diploma in Counselling Teenagers programme. You must complete an Advanced Training Application form and obtain a letter of recommendation from your programme leader, click here for more information.
Option One: University validated route Certificate in Trauma and Mental Health Informed Schools and Communities (12 Day) (Level 5. 20 credits)
Starts: April 2025 This will be blended learning with most of the classes being delivered on site face to face in London. This ends in time for progression on to the Diploma in Counselling Teenagers.Option Two: Internally Validated route ( Diploma in Trauma and Mental Health Informed Schools and Communities 11 days
Starts: April 2025 This will be blended learning with most of the classes being delivered on site face to face in London. This ends in time for progression on to the Diploma in Counselling Teenagers.TIS UK Training Dates 2025 ( one weekend in April, September, October and two weekends in June and November)
26/27 April – Days 1 and 2 face to face
7/8 June – Days 3 and 4 face to face
5/6 July – Days 5 and 6 online
13/14 September – Days 7 and 8 face to face
11/12 October – Days 9 and 10 online
8 November – Day 11 assessment day online
29 November – Day 12 face to face for ( UEL route only )
Costs: Please view all of our training courses and fees
Duration: A two-year course leading to Diploma in Integrative Child Psychotherapy. Tuesdays with some additional days, plus one additional term to complete assessments (see ‘Course Structure’ section below for more information).
When: TBC
Costs: Please view all of our training courses and fees
Joint award: Trauma Informed Schools UK and Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education
Admissions
The Advanced Practitioner Certificate in Parent-Child Relational Health in schools is run over five (5) training days, one (1) supervision day and one (1) assessment day. Delegates must have completed the TISUK 11-day diploma in Trauma and Mental Health Informed Schools or equivalent psychotherapy or counselling training AND be in a role where they are working with parents in an official capacity.
Courses are delivered online via Zoom. You must be available to attend the full duration of all days.
Fees: to be paid upfront in full £895
Vision and aims
This training course aims to empower practitioners with a wealth of evidence-based interventions that support both parent and child mental health. The training is backed by cutting edge research on the neuroscience and psychology of parent-child interactions (over 800 research studies).
When parents haven’t been parented themselves with emotion coaching, PACE (play/acceptance/curiosity/empathy) affect atunement, mental state talk, relational repair etc, why should they know how to parent in this way? Yet when these experiences are missing, negative interactions can all too easily become the norm, resulting in parents and children having a miserable time together, often for years. This then impacts negatively on both parent and child mental health.
So, this training is designed to support practitioners in skilling parents with effective relational interventions that bring consistently contactful connections. As part of this, practitioners will learn how to support parents to reflect instead or react, to prevent/ intervene effectively with child-on-parent violence (CPV), to empathise, to reflect instead or react, stay regulated and attuned under stress, all from a position of PACE. The training also includes skills in how to a) run ‘tea and talk time’ psycho-education groups for parents who want to improve their relationship with their child and learn how to handle tricky situations better b) carry out effective therapeutic sessions with parent-child dyads where relational repair is needed c) support parent-child relationships with interventions such as Parent-Child Game, Filial Therapy, Video-Interaction Guidance.
Benefits from attending
Gain skills in how to support parents to:
- Develop the art of PACE, mental state talk, social joy and relational repair.
- Understand transactional analysis including being able to cross transactions and avoid psychological games.
- Use DDP interventions effectively e.g., speaking about the child/speaking for the child
- Mentalize, attune to and engage with children at different developmental stages: infancy, middle childhood, the teenage years.
- Make the shift from stress-inducing to stress-reducing interactions.
- Engage in conversations on sensitive issues with childrenand teenagers.
- Have regular enriching interactions rather than family members in separate rooms/on their own devices.
- Stay regulated and contactful in the face of behavioursthat challenge.
- Put down boundaries in a way that is respectful and non-shaming.
- Address their own mental health and unprocessed trauma recognise when they’ve got triggered and what to do about it.
Assessment
Evidence of relational skills with peer and staff throughout the training. Short PowerPoint presentation evidencing effective relational work with a parent or group of parents.
Please note: the training can be attended without assessment and the award.
Courses Open For Application
The new course structure will be 7 days over 4-5 months
Day |
Course *Application Required* |
Day 1 & 2 - Training |
27th & 28th Feb 2025 |
Day 3 - Training |
20th March 2025 |
Day 4 - Training |
24th April 2025 |
Day 5 - Supervision |
8th May 2025 |
Day 6 - Training |
5th June 2025 |
Day 7 - Assessment |
3rd July 2025 |
(observation only option) |
Admissions: Qualification in counselling, psychotherapy or equivalent or TISUK Diploma.
To apply and for more information
www.traumainformedschools.co.uk
Email:

Includes second award: Certificate in Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Certificate in Child and Adolescent Counselling Skills
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Forums

Trainers: Dr Margot Sunderland and other top psychologists and experts by lived experience
Certificate in Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Forums
Includes second award: Certificate in Child and Adolescent Mental Health
This is a UEL validated course
Duration: Duration: Three years part time on Tuesdays.
When: Starts late September 2024
Costs: Please view all of our training courses and fees
Overview
An extraordinary, often life changing, training on the use of the arts in therapy. It brings together the integration of seven art forms with the spoken word, which powerfully brings access to the world of the unconscious. Students experience this for themselves in order to feel confident in being able to facilitate others. The experiential part of the course is supported by fascinating psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic theory on the human condition, the impact of painful life experience on brain, mind and body and research on transformational change. The training is also the entry requirement for the clinical trainings. There is weekly personal therapy from the start of the training programme (minimum 40 hours).
What qualification will I obtain on completion?
Postgraduate Certificate in Therapeutic Arts (University validated route) / Diploma in the Therapeutic Arts (Internal route)
Employment opportunities and pathways
This course facilitates progress to our clinical trainings which in turn lead to employment opportunities in counselling and psychotherapy in the NHS, private practice and the third sector.
Clive Bowring
Postgraduate Certificate/Advanced Diploma in the Therapeutic Arts
“To be a student at IATE is to experience a whole new world of emotional expression; unlocking the dormant potential that exists within. Learning the language of movement and the Arts, to spontaneously express the emotional wealth held inside and to begin the process of finding the real me, is a life changing experience to be cherished. It’s not to be missed.”

Course content
Practical sessions and clinicals skills practice
(75% of course content)
- The therapeutic application of: Art, Clay, Drama, Poetry, Sandplay, Music, Dance/Movement and Bodywork.
- Working with the arts as collaborative sense-making to address mental health issues.
- Core competencies in psychotherapy using the arts.
- Key facilitation techniques for trauma recovery using the arts.
- Empathy, active listening and imagining in.
- Working with image, symbol, metaphor to access the creative unconscious and alleviate core pain.
- Self-supervision techniques using the arts.
- Key relational skills in arts psychotherapy.
- Working with difference and diversity in psychotherapy.
- Group process and group dynamics.
Integrative Theoretical Perspectives
(25% of course content)
- The role of the arts in communication and transformational change: Integrative theoretical perspectives.
- Art as medicine: different theoretical perspectives.
- Psychoanalytic, Integrative, and contextual perspectives on the human condition.
- The neuroscience and psychology of mental health and ill-health/ trauma and trauma recovery.
- Panksepp’s genetically ingrained emotional systems in the brain.
- Attachment theory in relation to relational wellness and unwellness.
- Theories of mind and theories of transformational change/ alleviation of mental health problems.
- Child development and preventing intergenerational transfer.
- The centrality of working with emotion to change emotion (emotion focused therapy).
- Transactional Analysis.
- Gestalt Psychotherapy Theory.
- Mentalization-based interventions.
- Dyadic Development Psychotherapy.

Entry requirements
- Anyone can apply for the IATE Advanced Diploma.
- The University validated Postgraduate certificate requires a first degree but APL (Assessment of Prior Learning) can be submitted to the Academic Registrar.
- Applicants must demonstrate an active interest in becoming a psychotherapist or counsellor and the commitment this entails in terms of time and education.
Personal qualities needed
- Warmth, openness and ability to take feedback non-defensively.
- Empathic therapeutic presence.
- Self-awareness and capacity for introspection.
- The ability to stay stable under stress.
- The ability to create with ease both mental and artistic images.
Fees
Thursday/Friday (one year): £8,200.00
Weekend (two years): £8,200.00
Additional costs:
- University registration fee (if choosing the University route).
- Personal therapy
Please see our Fees page for full details.
Attendance
Either one day a week attendance (Thursday or Friday) for one year or two years over weekend days. Weekly personal therapy from the start of the training programme (minimum 40 hours).
Course start/end dates
September – July.
Diversity Bursary
This course is currently eligible to receive bursary funding from IATE. NB. this will only cover the student’s first year, the clinical trainings will need to be self-funded.
Please see our Bursary page for full details.
Upon successful completion of the above course, students are eligible to continue their studies with IATE on the following advanced training programmes:
MA Integrative Arts Psychotherapy
MA Integrative Child Psychotherapy
Diploma in Child Counselling (Year 2)
Diploma in Counselling Teenagers
This training programme constitutes the first year of the Professional Certificate in Counselling Using the Arts
Changes to the curriculum, teaching staff, assignments on our courses
IATE reserves the right to make adjustments to the above due to unforeseen circumstances.
The quality of the training will not in any way be compromised in doing so.
Duration: Two years
Year one: Weekend days. When: starts last Saturday in September
Year two: Tuesdays plus a few additional weekend days. When: Starts last week of September
Cost: Please view all of our training courses and fees
Eligible to apply for Registered Membership with BACP (MBACP)
Duration: (On completion of Diploma in Child Counselling) 1 further year
Approximately twice a month (Tuesdays).
When: Starts October 2025
Cost: Please view all of our training courses and fees
Eligible to apply for UKCP Registration
You will need to attend one of our Taster days / Interview days. We run one every month.
Cost for Taster day / Interview day: £83.
Book and pay online (follow link below) or telephone 020 7704 2534.
This is a UEL validated course
Duration: Two years one day a week (Monday) then a third year once a month
When: September 2025
Overview
An extraordinary, often life changing, training on the use of the arts in therapy. It brings together the integration of seven art forms with the spoken word, which powerfully brings access to the world of the unconscious. Students experience this for themselves in order to feel confident in being able to facilitate others. The experiential part of the course is supported by fascinating psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic theory on the human condition, the impact of painful life experience on brain, mind and body and research on transformational change. The training is also the entry requirement for the clinical trainings. There is weekly personal therapy from the start of the training programme (minimum 40 hours).
What qualification will I obtain on completion?
Postgraduate Certificate in Therapeutic Arts (University validated route)
Diploma in the Therapeutic Arts (Internal route)
Employment opportunities and pathways
This course facilitates progress to our clinical trainings which in turn lead to employment opportunities in counselling and psychotherapy in the NHS, private practice and the third sector.
Clive Bowring
Postgraduate Certificate/Advanced Diploma in the Therapeutic Arts
“To be a student at IATE is to experience a whole new world of emotional expression; unlocking the dormant potential that exists within. Learning the language of movement and the Arts, to spontaneously express the emotional wealth held inside and to begin the process of finding the real me, is a life changing experience to be cherished. It’s not to be missed.”

Course content
Practical sessions and clinicals skills practice
(75% of course content)
- The therapeutic application of: Art, Clay, Drama, Poetry, Sandplay, Music, Dance/Movement and Bodywork.
- Working with the arts as collaborative sense-making to address mental health issues.
- Core competencies in psychotherapy using the arts.
- Key facilitation techniques for trauma recovery using the arts.
- Empathy, active listening and imagining in.
- Working with image, symbol, metaphor to access the creative unconscious and alleviate core pain.
- Self-supervision techniques using the arts.
- Key relational skills in arts psychotherapy.
- Working with difference and diversity in psychotherapy.
- Group process and group dynamics.
Integrative Theoretical Perspectives
(25% of course content)
- The role of the arts in communication and transformational change: Integrative theoretical perspectives.
- Art as medicine: different theoretical perspectives.
- Psychoanalytic, Integrative, and contextual perspectives on the human condition.
- The neuroscience and psychology of mental health and ill-health/ trauma and trauma recovery.
- Panksepp’s genetically ingrained emotional systems in the brain.
- Attachment theory in relation to relational wellness and unwellness.
- Theories of mind and theories of transformational change/ alleviation of mental health problems.
- Child development and preventing intergenerational transfer.
- The centrality of working with emotion to change emotion (emotion focused therapy).
- Transactional Analysis.
- Gestalt Psychotherapy Theory.
- Mentalization-based interventions.
- Dyadic Development Psychotherapy.

Entry requirements
- Anyone can apply for the IATE Advanced Diploma.
- The University validated Postgraduate certificate requires a first degree but APL (Assessment of Prior Learning) can be submitted to the Academic Registrar.
- Applicants must demonstrate an active interest in becoming a psychotherapist or counsellor and the commitment this entails in terms of time and education.
Personal qualities needed
- Warmth, openness and ability to take feedback non-defensively.
- Empathic therapeutic presence.
- Self-awareness and capacity for introspection.
- The ability to stay stable under stress.
- The ability to create with ease both mental and artistic images.
Fees
Thursday/Friday (one year): £8,200.00
Weekend (two years): £8,200.00
Additional costs:
- University registration fee (if choosing the University route).
- Personal therapy
Please see our Fees page for full details.
Attendance
Either one day a week attendance (Thursday or Friday) for one year with 8 weekend days ( Starting September each year ) or one year and one term over weekend days ( starting April each year) Weekly personal therapy from the start of the training programme (minimum 40 hours).
Course start/end dates
September – July.
Diversity Bursary
This course is currently eligible to receive bursary funding from IATE. NB. this will only cover the student’s first year, the clinical trainings will need to be self-funded.
Please see our Bursary page for full details.
Upon successful completion of the above course, students are eligible to continue their studies with IATE on the following advanced training programmes:
MA Integrative Arts Psychotherapy
MA Integrative Child Psychotherapy
Diploma in Child Counselling (Year 2)
Diploma in Counselling Teenagers
This training programme constitutes the first year of the Professional Certificate in Counselling Using the Arts
Changes to the curriculum, teaching staff, assignments on our courses
IATE reserves the right to make adjustments to the above due to unforeseen circumstances.
The quality of the training will not in any way be compromised in doing so.
Duration: Two years part time
Year one: Thursday or Friday for one academic year or 18 months over 2 years on weekend days - Therapeutic and Educational Application of the Arts (Level 1)
Year two: Monday attendance for one academic year, plus two additional training days - MA Integrative Arts Psychotherapy Year 1
When: Starts October 2024
Leading to eligibility to apply for BACP registration as a Counsellor
Starts March 2025
This training programme is delivered in person on weekends. Students must be able to travel to The Institute in London.
This course is due to finish in February 2026.
"The Teenage Counselling Diploma was outstanding. I felt it was a great success and incredible to think it was all delivered through a pandemic!!"
Frances Ackland-Snow (author of the book and film, starring Jeremy Irons The Little Girl with No Voice)
Philosophy of the course
What an amazing stage of life, with all its dramatic hormonal changes, which can turn that sweet little kid into a teenager who knows their own mind, becomes their own person and finds their own direction. If all goes well, transition to adulthood means the teenager fully engages with their drive and creativity, discovers their sexuality in the context of a loving relationship, and develops a far deeper level of social and emotional intelligence. But if things go wrong, teenagers can find themselves living with the torment of shame, anxiety or depression, low self-esteem.
About the course
This course comprises a wealth of age appropriate therapeutic interventions, clinical skills practice, fascinating theoretical underpinnings from the latest research in adolescent psychology, sociology, neuroscience and medicine. As well as working one-to-one with troubled teenagers, the course will also equip students with evidence-based psychoeducation for teenagers. This includes vital knowledge to enable teenagers to successfully process painful life experiences and make informed decisions about key aspects of their lives e.g. use of social media, drugs, alcohol, gender and sexuality, self-harm, relationships with peers and parents, how to say no and look after themselves, the skill of happiness and what to do with their life. This will enable students to be able to teach psychology-informed PSHE lessons for teenagers.
The course will train students to be able to run specific focus mental health groups in a safe highly structured way. These moving therapy groups offer teenagers the opportunity to meet others who are going through what they are going through.
All clinical skills taught on the course are underpinned with an in-depth understanding of developmental theory, relevant psychoanalytic and psychological theory and the neuroscientific research-base explaining what the emotionally-available adult does to optimise effectiveness. The training aims to support the counsellor to enable the child to move from a life blighted by mental health problems and/or troubled relationships, to being able to enjoy a capacity for a far more compassionate accepting relationship with self, for deeply fulfilling relationships with others and to know a far warmer, kinder inner world.
This course comprises of classroom-based tuition and a supervised placement of 100 client hours. We have a designated placement coordinator for the course. Client groups are pre-assessed as suitable. This is supervised practice. All students are required to attend weekly personal therapy and independent supervision at their own cost.
The Diploma is awarded by The Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education (IATE).
Who is this course for?
The course is for people who are passionate about helping teenagers. The course qualifies delegates to work with 12 to 25-year-olds. This means being able to work in both colleges and universities. The need is great! There are so few people in this country who hold an actual qualification in counselling teenagers, so we are confident that this Diploma will open many doors.
Main Educational Aims of the course
- Preparing students to be able to work therapeutically with the highest of ethical standards with teenagers in a variety of health, education, social services and private sector contexts;
- Providing opportunities to explore and examine how to prevent troubled teenagers from spoiling their lives through unprocessed feelings and emotional, relational and behavioural difficulties;
- Enabling students to acquire the ability to integrate theoretical concepts with practical skills leading to effective application of core competencies in clinical practice;
- Enabling students to develop clinical skills to be able to assess the emotional needs of teenage clients and to respond to these effectively taking into account the identification of risk;
- Enabling students to help teenagers process their feelings in such a way that empowers them to form meaningful and enriching connections with self and others;
- Ensuring that students have acquired the reflective and evaluative skills necessary to monitor and appraise effectively their work with teenagers;
- Enabling students to work with the arts, metaphor and symbol to help teenagers explore their inner worlds and connect to their creativity
- Enabling students to run therapy groups for teenagers and psychological based PSHE sessions for teenagers on how to do life well;
- Enabling students to run parent-teenager short term therapy sessions to improve the quality of the relationship.
The award of 'Diploma in Counselling Teenagers' will be granted upon successful completion of the training programme and receipt of a signed clinical log recording a minimum of 100 clinical hours.
Admissions
All applicants for Routes One & Two must submit a letter of recommendation from their most recent course leader/tutor to
Applicants for Route Two must attend a Taster/Application Day (free of charge). The online booking form will require payment therefore, please email
It is not uncommon for some applicants to be invited to attend a second interview which will be held online. You will be contacted directly if this is required.
Applicants for Route Three must submit an Application Form and attend a Taster/Application Day. Applicants for this route will be required to attend a second interview.
Applicants from all routes are required to complete a Counselling Skills training course (Level 2, 30 hours)
Applicants must have;
- Some experience of living with or working with teenagers
- Empathy, in-depth capacity for reflection
- Self-awareness, good contact and therapeutic presence
Attendance on this programme via Route Two cannot be considered if TIS training has not been completed in full. All days must have been attended and assessments successfully passed.
Route One
First year training curriculum and qualification from: Level One, DipCC Year 1, MA IAP Year 1, Wellbeing Year 2 (two year qualification)
Second year starts March 2025: Young People’s Mental Health, Counselling Interventions and Clinical Placement (weekend days and some weekdays scheduled during school half term and holidays).
Eligible to apply for BACP registration after BACP Membership and Proficiency test.
Total trainer contact hours range from a minimum of 250 to 400 hours
Route Two
First year: Trauma Informed and Counselling Interventions in Schools and Communities with successful Diploma qualification.
Weekend days and work based learning: University route or internal award.
Our sister organisation Trauma Informed Schools www.traumainformedschools.co.uk deliver this course around the UK with one entirely online.
If you wish to do this course in another region of the UK it will need to have finished before the start of the Diploma in Counselling Teenagers programme in February. Attendance on this programme cannot be considered if TIS training has not been completed in full. All days must have been attended and assessments successfully passed.
Second year: March 2025
Young People’s Mental Health, Counselling Interventions and Clinical Placement (weekend days and some weekdays scheduled during school half term and holidays).
Eligible to apply for BACP registration after BACP Membership and Proficiency test.
Total trainer contact hours: 250 hours
Route Three
Starts March 2025: For qualified counsellors or therapists only
Qualification at the end of one year.
Admissions criteria: at least 100 training hours and qualification from a recognised College plus a clinical log detailing client hours under supervision signed by an appropriately trained clinical supervisor (accredited UKCP or BACP). Also at least one year personal psychotherapy (signed from therapist with registering body and registration number).
Please note that this route does not lead to eligibility for BACP registration as although intensive does not fulfil BACP requirement for two years part time or one year full time. In order to proceed with registration with BACP you must complete a Trauma and Mental Health Informed Schools and Communities training programme.
Total trainer contact hours: 200 hours
Changes to the curriculum, teaching staff, assignments on our courses
IATE reserves the right to make adjustments to the above due to unforeseen circumstances.
The quality of the training will not in any way be compromised in doing so.