module specification

This module builds on Personal and Professional Development 1 and focuses on the advanced application of ethics, safeguarding and inclusion in complex practice contexts. It supports you to integrate ethical reasoning with legal and organisational responsibilities, and to manage ambiguous dilemmas where competing duties, power dynamics, uncertainty and risk considerations must be balanced and clearly documented. It will cover topics such as: trauma-informed care and complex trauma, dissociation, self-harm and suicidality, domestic abuse and coercive control, substance use, safeguarding in the context of exploitation, and working with clients who present with multiple intersecting needs. The module also develops your understanding of working with severe and enduring mental health difficulties, and understanding key features of psychiatric settings, pathways and pharmacology in so far as they affect engagement, therapeutic work, and risk management. It will address the ethical and practical challenges of working across systems alongside professional resilience, vicarious trauma, and the use of supervision and consultation to sustain safe practice.

Attention is also given to safe practice in digital and hybrid contexts and OPT work, including managing risk remotely, maintaining confidentiality, and ensuring accessibility and inclusion. The ESJF and EDI strand move from foundational awareness to advanced, critical and action-oriented practice. You will explore intersectionality, anti-oppressive and anti-racist approaches, reasonable adjustments, and culturally responsive assessment and formulation in relation to your own practice. This includes working ethically with difference in situations of conflict or rupture, responding to discrimination within services, and engaging sensitively with culture, faith, migration and asylum experiences, disability and neurodiversity, and diverse gender and sexual identities. Non-Western models of therapy will be introduced 

Throughout, the module emphasises reflexivity, accountability, and advocacy, supporting you to identify and challenge oppressive dynamics, strengthen inclusive practice, and translate learning into concrete service and practice improvements.

The module includes a professional development reflective group, to facilitate self awareness and reflective practice.

PY7238

Available for Study Abroad? NO

In this module you will be taught advanced ethical decision-making for complex clinical and professional situations, including safeguarding in high-risk and complex presentations such as domestic abuse and coercive control, and the application of safeguarding pathways in both in-person and digital practice. You will be taught to assess mental health and decision-making capacity, including consent, duty of care, and appropriate information sharing, alongside professional report writing and record-keeping standards.

You will be taught advanced ESJF, EDI, and anti-oppressive practice, including intersectionality, anti-racist practice, and culturally responsive assessment and formulation when working with faith, culture, migration, disability, neurodiversity, gender, and sexuality. The module will also cover responding to discrimination within services, understanding severe presentations, psychiatric care, and psychopharmacology, and working effectively within multidisciplinary contexts. In addition, you will be taught to maintain practitioner wellbeing and fitness to practise, including recognising and managing vicarious trauma and burnout, maintaining boundaries, and using supervision and reflective practice effectively.

This module will continue to support you in meeting the PSRB Fitness to Practise requirements through the teaching and development of therapeutic skills, professional behaviours, and reflective practice required for safe and effective professional practice.

Teaching will be delivered through a combination of lectures, interactive workshops and seminars, skills practice sessions, a facilitated professional development reflective group, supplementary guided web-based learning and self-managed independent study. You will be encouraged to reflect on your learning throughout the module and maintain the high standards expected of the counselling professions. Teaching will be largely delivered in room with some synchronous online session inputs.

On successful completion of this module, you will be able to: 

1. Critically apply ethical frameworks, including the BACP Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions, to complex practice dilemmas, demonstrating sound ethical judgement, professional accountability, and appropriate use of supervision and consultation.
2. Evaluate the impact of structural inequality, discrimination, marginalisation, and power on mental health, access to services, and therapeutic outcomes, and integrate this understanding into ethically informed, inclusive practice and advocacy where appropriate.
3. Demonstrate culturally responsive and trauma-informed practice, including communication, assessment, and formulation, with clients across intersecting identities, while critically reflecting on professional power, positionality, and organisational context.
4. Critically evaluate psychotherapeutic approaches, with particular attention to the cultural assumptions of Western-based models, and demonstrate an introductory understanding of non-Western and alternative therapeutic frameworks.
5. Evidence advanced self-awareness, reflexivity, and professional development through reflective practice, reflective group participation, and engagement with placement learning, professional standards, and self-care.
6. Critically engage with feedback from peers, tutors, and supervisors, using it constructively to support skills development, professional growth, and readiness for safe, ethical, and effective practice.