Our Student Placement Information & Offer

Introduction

Thank you for your interest in applying to complete your placement hours with Cruse Bereavement Support. We are the UK’s leading bereavement charity and help people during one of the most painful periods of their life. We support people through information on our website and social media, though our national helpline, group and peer support and one to one support. The majority of our one-to-one support is provided over the phone or on zoom.

You can find more information about us, including our mission and values on our website here.

Selection and Training

Everyone working at Cruse is selected according to their skills. We welcome diversity in gender, sexual orientation, race, age, disability, religion and beliefs.

You can find more about our Introduction to Cruse session and upcoming dates on our website here. Following this we will send you an application form and if you are shortlisted you will be invited to interview within 3 weeks.

Please note: it’s important that you understand your institution’s requirements for your placement and whether Cruse can meet this, before you apply. Your interview will be with 2 experienced volunteers or staff members and will discuss your skills and experience and your experience of grief and if successful you will be given dates for our upcoming training courses.

Our Training

All bereavement volunteer applicants are required to attend our Bereavement Foundation course. This 6-session course is quality checked by the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS). We run the sessions on consecutive weeks over a 6-week period. There is also a requirement to successfully complete a portfolio of written work during the course, this enables you to reflect on your learning and personal development during the course. Following successful completion of the course we will invite you to a post course review to discuss your learning and to understand whether Cruse is the right organisation for you.

Our Placement Offer

Not all our branches are able to offer student placements, if your application is successful, we may be able to offer you a placement in another branch. We do not offer placements working with our CYP clients.

Administration

Whilst we will assist you with your placement forms the responsibility for these to be completed and sent to your placement institution is with you.

Client Work

During assessment we agree with the client if one-to-one support is appropriate for them. Our volunteers use counselling skills to enable a client to talk about their grief. Our assessors receive Cruse assessment training, we do not require them to be BACP accredited. Clients who receive short term support typically have between 4 and 6 sessions.

The majority of our one-to-one support is offered over the phone or on Zoom. We cannot guarantee that we can offer you in person client work (the exception to this is Northern Ireland). Any in-person support will take place in suitable premises, approved by Cruse. If you are providing remote support you will need to ensure you have a quiet, confidential space to offer client support.

BACP Requirements

BACP requires that clients are aware that they are working with a counsellor in training, you must inform a client of this at the start of your first contact with them. Before presenting case material, to your placement institution you must ensure that:

The client is fully informed and agrees to material being presented by signing our consent form

The confidentiality and identity of the client is always protected

If a client declines the inclusion of their case study, we expect you to continue to support them unless they request otherwise.

Any client material used for university or college training purposes must first have been presented and agreed in Cruse supervision.

We permit audio recording of sessions with the agreement of your supervisor and the client’s written and signed consent.

Supervision

We are committed to providing supervision for you, as one of our volunteers. The supervision will be appropriate and sufficient for the client work you undertake. When you are on a placement you are accountable to Cruse, through your Cruse supervisor, for your work with our clients. Our supervision offer is group support of 2 hours per month. BACP stipulates that if you are in a group of up to 4 you can claim half the supervision time, or if in a larger group the number of hours divided by the number in the group.

Please note: Cruse supervisors are not required to be BACP accredited supervisors, and the standard offering is group supervision. If you need extra supervision to meet your course requirements you can arrange external supervision. Any arrangements or costs are your responsibility and will not be arranged or paid for by Cruse. Any agreement will be between the supervisor and yourself. The supervisor must sign the Cruse confidentiality agreement and have their own insurance to cover them for external work. Your Cruse supervisor may not have the capacity to complete placement or review forms for you, in this case you will need an external supervisor to do this for you.

Our Expectations of You

We invest in our bereavement volunteer applicants by offering them extensive, high-quality training. We ask that all applicants commit to the full training course, including the portfolio work. It costs us £558 to train a new bereavement volunteer and we ask that all trainees consider donating some of this cost and you can do so here. We also offer high quality supervision, support and a variety of CPD opportunities.

Therefore, our expectation is that you commit to at least 100 hours of client support, this will start with 1 client and can increase to 3 clients at a time, as agreed with your supervisor. You will also be required to attend monthly supervision and take part in 15 hours of CPD each year.

Use of our volunteer portal to record client sessions and your volunteer hours is mandatory for all our volunteers.