Counsellor

About us:

The Counselling and Mental Health Support Service is part of the Students & Education Directorate, a collection of wide-ranging professional services in place to support King’s students and their education. As a directorate we manage the student lifecycle from application to graduation and beyond, to ensure a coherent and seamless student experience and effective administrative processes, working closely with King’s faculties to do so.

The Counselling and Mental Health Support Service provides a highly specialised Counselling and Mental Health service to students who are often in distress and require sensitive, timely access to psychological and mental health support.

About the role:

The role requires Counsellors to provide confidential psychological and emotional support to students, addressing a wide range of personal, social and academic challenges. The Counsellor will have extensive experience and skill in carrying out initial assessments with students, assessing student risk, previous mental health history and identifying therapeutic goals which are suitable for a short term therapeutic intervention. The Counsellor will manage a case load of individual clients, monitoring progress as well as referring students to internal and external supports where appropriate. The Counsellor will work within an experienced Counselling team and contribute to clinical case discussions.

This is an exciting opportunity for candidates looking to work in a dynamic environment where we embrace new initiatives and ways to improve the provision of mental health support for our students. This is an opportunity to grow your skills in working with a diverse client population within a valued service.

This is a part time role (50% FTE; 17.5 hours per week) and you will be offered an indefinite contract. Please note that as the role is part time, the salary displayed on the advert will be pro-rated accordingly.

About you:

Essential criteria

• Demonstrated ability to carry out assessments with students, identifying risk, mental health history and therapeutic goals.
• Experience providing therapy in a short term five session, solution focused model in an HE or educational stetting or NHS therapeutic service.
• Demonstrated high-level competence in providing therapeutic interventions that are trauma informed and culturally appropriate with individuals of diverse backgrounds and presenting concerns.
• Experience of balancing the need to share information appropriately to ensure the effective management of risk with the need for confidentiality and data protection legislation compliance, and escalating risk where deemed necessary
• Demonstrated empathy for, and understanding of, the psychosocial issues and concerns experienced and demonstrated by students undertaking university level studies.
• Possesses high-level communication (written and oral) and interpersonal skills, including liaison and influencing skills to work collaboratively, flexibly, and productively within and across teams to provide advice on student mental health issues and service to students.
• Applicants must have a relevant academic degree and must hold the proper license or accreditation to legally provide counselling services in the UK, e.g., BACP, UKCP, HCPC, BPS. Accepted degrees include an M.A. or Ph.D. in Counselling or Psychotherapy, or a MA, Ph.D. or Psy.D. in Clinical or Counselling Psychology.

Desirable criteria

• Previous experience providing counselling in an HE setting
• Training and experience facilitating long term therapeutic groups or short term CBT or similar group interventions

Interviews are provisionally due to be held on Thursday 22nd January 2026.

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