Volunteer Counsellor (Student Placement and Qualified)
Salary 0
Sheffield Mind Wellbeing Centre, Sharrow, Sheffield
Vacancy listed 08/06/2026
Application deadline 19/06/2026
Details
About this role:
Sheffield Mind is looking for both Student and Qualified Volunteer Counsellors to join our team. As a Volunteer Counsellor, you will be at the heart of our General Counselling Service, providing 1:1 therapy to service users.

Working Hours:
We ask for a minimum commitment of 12 months and that you see a minimum of 3 clients per week.

Please note: We have limited places available during the week. Preferable working days are Mondays, Tuesdays (including evenings) or Wednesdays.  
 
How to apply:
  • Download the application form from our website 
  • Click 'apply' at the bottom of this page 
  • Enter your details 
  • Upload your application form and CV 
(Please have your CV and application form ready to upload. If the session expires, you will not be able to complete the upload. ) 

 
Job Purpose 
To liaise with the Counselling Administrator, Clinical Lead, Senior Therapist and Services Manager to provide counselling to clients of the service, working with between 3 and 6 clients over 1 or 2 days.  

To work autonomously within BACP ethical guidelines and the overall framework of Sheffield Mind policies and procedures.  
 
To write clinical records of client work, including attendance, and input client data on our database.  
 
 Main duties and Responsibilities 
  1. Undertake therapy with a caseload of clients, face-to-face or by phone or video call. 
  2. To exercise professional responsibility for the therapy and discharge of clients whose problems are managed via counselling or psychotherapy intervention. 
  3. To liaise with the Clinical Lead to formulate and implement plans for the counselling or psychotherapy intervention when necessary. 
  4. To undertake risk assessments and risk management for individual clients and ensure that the counselling agreement is followed. 
  5. To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording.
  6. To receive regular clinical professional supervision of your work for the counselling service from the Clinical Lead. 
  7. To adhere to BACP ethical guidelines. 
  8. To attend on a voluntary basis any other workshops arranged by the service that you regard as useful or helpful to your development as a practitioner. 
  9. To attend regular performance reviews with Service Manager.
 

Other Tasks 
  1. Actively promote and ensure good equal opportunities practice and work in an anti-oppressive manner. 
  2. Any other tasks that can be reasonably expected that are within the scope and spirit of the role. 

 Person Specification
1.  Be a qualified counsellor/psychotherapist or be in a BACP / UKCP / other professional body accredited training to diploma or degree level and have reached the point where your training requires that you undertake a placement – Essential

2.  Be a professional or student member of a recognised professional counselling and psychotherapy body i.e. BACP, UKCP

3.  Have experienced counselling or psychotherapy as a client yourself or have this as a course requirement - Essential

4.  Excellent communication skills and ability to work in a team. Including communicating effectively with a wide range of people in both formal and informal settings – Essential

5.  Good IT skills including use of Microsoft Word, email, internet and database packages – Essential

6.  Able to establish and maintain therapeutic alliances and hold firm boundaries – Essential

7.  Ability to recognise own levels of resilience and support needs; to use supervision well – Essential

8. An understanding of counselling contracts – Essential

9.  An understanding of client confidentiality and its limits within an organisational setting – Essential

10. An understanding of ethics, risk and safeguarding in relation to counselling/psychotherapy – Essential

11. An understanding of equality and diversity in relation to counselling/psychotherapy – Essential

12. A desire to work with a range of theoretical models or an interest and willingness in using a variety of different approaches - Essential
 
 Values 
Sheffield Mind has a set of core values which we expect all volunteers to demonstrate. Building on these we have developed a set of expectations that we expect all team members to demonstrate. 
  • Share your knowledge and experience. 
  • Use appropriate language when communicating to others to ensure they understand. 
  • Be decisive. 
  • Be positive – focus on what you can do and why something will/could work. 
  • Actively seek feedback and act on it (where appropriate) 
  • Know when to step in and do it yourself and when to leave others to have a go. 
  • Be self-aware: know your strengths and development needs and look for ways to develop. 
  • Be visible. 
  • Take care of your own well being 
  • Manage yourself and your emotions. 
Benefits

Sheffield Mind is committed to investing in and developing our volunteers. The successful candidates will receive:
• Sheffield Mind’s core training for new volunteers.
• Ongoing support and regular group supervision from one of the managers and clinical lead, together with day-to-day support provided by Sheffield Mind colleagues.
• Out of pocket expenses (travel).

Notes

Note
Following the closing date, we’ll contact you if you have been shortlisted to go on to the next stage. Please note that unfortunately we’re not able to contact you if you are not successful and we’re not able to give feedback on why you weren’t shortlisted.

Please note that very occasionally, we have to make a decision that if we receive sufficient applications before the deadline, we withdraw a job advert. This is because if we get too many applications, we don't have the capacity to deal with shortlisting.

Unfortunately, in these rare circumstances, it is not possible to find out who had already downloaded the application pack in order to inform them individually.

We do appreciate the time and effort it takes to complete a job application, therefore we recommend that you always double-check that the job is still on our website before you fill in the application and submit.

If you have any questions about this role please email job@sheffieldmind.co.uk
Thank you for your interest and we hope to hear from you soon.

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