Coronavirus: one year on

On 23^rd March 2020 as the whole of the UK entered lockdown, facing one of the most challenging and unprecedented times experienced in our lifetime, Heartwood Counselling and Psychotherapy Training, along with many other providers of counselling training, was forced to consider how it could continue training within the guidelines and ensuring the safety of both staff and students.

Now, one year on we wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on the challenges and trials that we have all overcome and thank all of our students, tutors and support staff for their support and efforts along the way.

March 24^th 2020, the day after lockdown was announced, saw our training move online to the Heartwood Online Platform (HOP), so students could continue to progress with their studies with as little disruption as possible.

We were able to run our first ever fully online Foundation in Counselling (Level 3 equivalent) course, which is now a permanent fixture in our training programme.

When we returned to national lockdown at the start of the year, we launched our ‘stay connected’ sessions for students, led by tutors covering interesting topics with a chance for questions and answers.

Ahead of the first lockdown, we made our Devon classroom COVID-secure, meaning learners were able to return to the classroom safely in the autumn for a short period. Our Regent’s Park venue was also able to hold COVID safe classes from October. These measures will remain in place when we are able to return to the classroom once again. We are continually following government guidelines to assess how we can safely deliver our training when we can meet in-person.

We are very grateful to all of our students for their understanding and perseverance during this transitional period and beyond, without which we would not have been able to achieve the level of stability we have over the last 12 months. We look forward to welcoming our students back to our classrooms soon.