Each year, OutLine’s counselling team has a small amount of capacity dedicated to supporting Rainbow students who are passionate about providing mental health support to Rainbow communities to complete a student placement as part of their course requirements.
This page describes what OutLine provides to placement students and how to express interest in an OutLine placement.
Note that because of our limited capacity for student counsellor placements, interested students should reach out as far in advance of their placement start dates as possible.
OutLine student counsellor placements
To facilitate OutLine’s aims of supporting the mental health of Rainbow communities, our counselling team provides student placements which support the professional development of Rainbow people studying mental health qualifications.
During their placement, students will be part of a growing team of counsellors providing rainbow specialist support throughout Aotearoa. They will receive training and supervision from our Senior Counsellor, be supported to see clients face to face and/or online, and take part in a monthly team clinical supervision.
All OutLine placements emphasise the provision of high-quality, ethical Rainbow specialist counselling to OutLine clients and safe supervision and counselling practice. Students must be able to follow OutLine policies and procedures and meet OutLine’s standards of professionalism.
Who are we looking for?
Students will generally need to be based in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland to be able to receive adequate supervision early in their placement, but in some circumstances we may be able to support other placements. Students must also organise their own external supervision.
OutLine is best-placed to support students in counselling programmes, but can discuss possibilities for other mental health programmes which have a strong talk therapy component.
OutLine’s counsellors, including our placement students are all Rainbow people.
We strongly encourage any Rainbow students who are interested in completing a counselling placement to reach out with an expression of interest. However, due to our limited capacity for student placements, OutLine will prioritise expressions of interest which come from:
- Current or recent volunteers who have provided support via other OutLine services
- People with identities that are underrepresented in OutLine’s existing counselling team, with a particular focus on Takatāpui students, MVPFAFF+ students, or other Rainbow students of colour.
To express your interest in a placement with OutLine
Email [email protected] with a CV, Cover Letter and information about your course requirements including:
- Your degree and institution of study
- Your location
- When your placement would need to start, and when it would be to be confirmed by
- How many hours you need to complete for your placement
- Requirements for these hours (e.g. must be face-to-face, client hours vs admin)
- Whether you will complete another placement alongside your proposed placement with OutLine
- Anything else we might need to know about your placement requirements
We will be in touch with any further questions and our timeline. The speed of this process will vary depending on time of year, organisational capacity and level of student interest.
If we have upcoming placement capacity and think you might be a good fit, we will organise an interview with our Senior Counsellor.
If you are offered a placement, you will need to complete a Police Check, complete any placement documentation from your tertiary institution, and sign OutLine’s code of conduct before this is confirmed.