Curriculum Content and Assessments: Evaluating Students Core Competencies
Curriculums differ across organisations and countries in subtle and substantive ways. This includes the content of trainings and modes of delivery. Each organisation has a staff team with unique and specific expertise. Students learning and developmental stages are considered at different levels of education, training and practice. From the initial foundation level to post graduate levels, the content of recognised training curriculum will vary in different organisations. Course design initially aims to prepare students for practice-based learning in placements with clients. Throughout training students work towards graduation in a profession with commitment to lifelong learning.
It is advisable for training organisations to ensure that there are a range of assessors. Students’ assessments are usually double marked, moderated and externally examined, wherever possible to ensure there is a fair and consistent marking process and procedures. These include published criteria for assessment. What follows are some key areas which may be covered in curriculum at different levels.
Foundation Level – Familiarisation with Principles, Values and Contexts
- Ecosystemic perspectives, EIATSCYP Ethical Framework, professional conduct
- Therapeutic communication skills, contracting, parents, child centred practice
- Interdisciplinary perspectives and practice in developing a working alliance
- Safeguarding and child protection including confidentiality, capacity and consent
- Child development and attachment: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
- Play and the language of the child, including creative methods for self-expression
- The therapeutic relationship and key theoreticians informing relational practice
- Key concepts for practice including the significance of children’s rights (UNCRC)
- Use of supervision, presenting issues, cycles of enquiry, reflection and analysis
- Personal therapy and its significance for personal growth and self-development
Assessments may include written evaluations, essays, personal journals, creative expression and self-exploration, group or individual viva, evaluation of practical facilitation skills, group presentations about knowledge of key concepts in action.
Foundation Level
- Principles of professional practice
- The ability to play with children and young people
- Counselling skills including deep listening
- Understanding of safeguarding procedures
- Awareness of key concepts informing practice
- Emotional sensitivity and empathic responsiveness
- Self-awareness and ability to reflect in dialogue
Intermediary Level – Acquisition of Therapeutic Knowledge and Skills
- Practice based learning in placements and the role of professional boundaries
- Working therapeutically in the contexts where children live, learn and play
- The reasons why children experience difficulties and domains of development
- Neurodiversity, special educational needs: medicalisation and social models
- Multi-disciplinary consultation, risk, safeguarding and trauma-informed care
- Child and adolescent mental health, the significance of diagnosis and medication
- The role of family, and relationships in evaluating challenges and opportunities
- Assessment and collaborative formulation in considering each child’s needs
- The use of measurement tools, research ethics of the use of outcome measures
- Equality, diversity and intersectionality: discrimination and inclusive practice
Assessments may include written evaluations, essays, formal journal entries, written child protection exams, practical or oral safeguarding assessments, individual or small group viva, written or practical interdisciplinary case presentations, examples from anecdotal evidence of practice in placements, transcripts of therapeutic practice.
Intermediary Level
- Knowledge of professional ethics and conduct in action
- Safeguarding and child protection practice in action
- Knowledge and application of key theoretical concepts
- Understanding and evaluation of children’s presenting needs
- Applying assessment methods, understanding of the therapeutic relationship
- Creative and relational skills and compassionate presence in practice
- Interdisciplinary team consultation and therapeutic communication skills
Qualifying Level – Integration and Application in Practice
- Ongoing practice-based learning and practice-based evidence in placements
- Pluralistic approaches: creative and relational therapeutic skills in action
- Embedding ethics and professional principles: integrated approaches to practice
- Major key theoretical models from different schools of thought and modalities
- Critical insights and understanding of children in social and cultural contexts
- Relational ethics, therapeutic philosophy, values and principles in practice
- Holding the developmental and relational narrative journey of therapy over time
- Use of self and unconscious process, transference and countertransference
- Working with parents, carers and the range of different relevant professionals
- Advanced use of supervision for critical and compassionate self-reflexivity
Assessments may include formal written work, essays, case studies, advanced facilitation skills, reflections on self-enquiry and use of self, phenomenological enquiry, autoethnographic research, community wellbeing project presentations, professional practice profiles, self and peer evaluations and professional audit interviews.
Qualifying Level
- Professional understanding of ethical dilemmas in action
- Applied research enquiry and evaluation of practice
- Consultation with parents, carers and professionals
- Ability to reflect on therapeutic relational practice
- Creative and relational therapeutic communication skills
- Use of self and integration of theory and practice
- Understanding of issues of power, privilege and positioning
- Anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive practice
Post-Graduate – Research and Evaluation
- Ongoing research informed practice and commitment to lifelong learning
- Legal, policy and ethical frameworks, risk assessment, and safety planning
- Child and adolescent mental health, early intervention in promoting wellbeing
- Research enquiry, observation studies and mental health familiarisation in action
- Critical enquiry, unconscious bias, self-compassion and evaluation in research
- Critical appraisal and advanced integration of theory and research in practice
- Cultural differences in understanding the challenges of children and young people
- Critical evaluation of medical, social and psychological models and perspectives
- Systemic understanding of the family, culture, organisation and social context
- Knowledge of the profession, ethical decision-making, evaluation of practice
Assessments may include ongoing written work, essays, engagement in research including observation studies, learning journals, the evaluation of therapeutic practice through ongoing practice-based research projects and case studies, research project presentations, professional practice audits, interviews and evaluative reviews.
Post-Graduate Qualifying Level
- Critical evaluation of the developing field of professional practice
- Professional practice within legal, policy and ethical frameworks
- Advanced integration of knowledge and skills in practice
- Critical evaluation of practice-based evidence and research
- Evaluation of interdisciplinary practice in a bio-psychosocial approach
- Embedded approach to equity, diversity and inclusion in context
- Consultative approach within wider multidisciplinary systems of care
Evaluating Students Competencies and Professional Standards
Students in training are evaluated on their capacity to evidence the EIATSCYP core competencies in action. They evidence they can demonstrate this through the EIATSCYP training standards which are at different levels for the diversity of approach including:
- Contextual Therapeutic Practice
- Child Therapeutic Counselling
- Child Psychotherapeutic Counselling
- Psychotherapy with Children
- Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy
Students can apply for specific training in different areas which all include the necessary core competencies for therapeutic practice with children and young people:
Contextual Therapeutic Practice – offering a confidence building or positive play experiences to enable early intervention, prevention and promotion of wellbeing.
Child Therapeutic Counselling – offering 1:1 relational opportunities for therapeutic practice, engaging children and facilitating creative, therapeutic communication skills.
Child Psychotherapeutic Counselling – offering children 1:1 trauma-informed care and therapeutic facilitation, enabling ongoing recovery from painful life experiences.
Psychotherapy with Children – offering 1:1 opportunities for work with children’s inner world, supporting them in depth towards recovery from relational conflicts or deficits.
Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy – offering 1:1 longer term and in-depth work, regulating intensity and depth of emotional contact, healing and recovery from trauma.
Evaluation of Practice-Based Learning in Placements
Practice-based learning is a key component in therapeutic approaches to promoting child mental health and emotional wellbeing. There is a working alliance between the placement provider, the training organisation and supervisor to enable safe and effective monitoring and evaluation of student’s development and performance.
Placements would usually include an annual report from both the placement manager and the supervisor to monitor and evaluate students’ progress. Students benefit from ongoing feedback which can be supportive and challenging. This includes tutors and supervisors working together as well as self-evaluation and self-assessment processes.