We ran a successful Counselling Training Project from April 2004 to June 2007.

The Counselling Training Project came about as a result of many years of campaigning by SCoD and other organisations to raise the profile of mental health issues among deaf, deafened, hard of hearing and deafblind people.

The then Scottish Executive and Big Lottery Fund funded the Project for three years. The Project's key tasks were to facilitate the training of deaf and deafblind people in Counselling Skills, with a view to some students continuing on to complete their Diploma and enter the profession. The Project also included raising the awareness, knowledge and appropriate communication skills of mainstream counsellors to equip them for communication with deaf clients.

The Project delivered three certificate courses in counselling skills for deaf people, one introduction to counselling course for deafblind people, deaf and deafblind awareness courses for mainstream counsellors and a BSL course for mainstream counsellors. The Project published a series of leaflets and factsheets:

• What is counselling?
• Is your counselling service accessible?
• Advice for GPs on counselling

As a final part of the Project, a useful DVD was prepared and is available to view within our site:

Counselling ... a resource