Hello everyone I’m new here ,I was just wondering if anyone could help ,I’ve just qualified as a counsellor and gained my honours degree,I’m looking to move to France from England in the near future and would love to continue been a counsellor,Can anyone offer any advice on how ease it is to find a counsellor job in France or any links I could read as struggling to find any information
Thank you
Welcome to the forum Claire.
It may help if you tell us what sort of counsellor job you’re looking for and if you have French qualifications in the field and the right to work here.
Welcome to the forum, @claire1234 !
There are significant hurdles at the French end for doing any kind of work here with UK qualifications, as @Wozza has rightly pointed out. However, there is an additional problem in that, if you are registered with BACP, for example, they do not allow you to counsel in another (non-English speaking) country. When I looked into this some years ago, even restricting oneself to taking solely Anglophone clients was not permitted but, hopefully,that will have changed.
The easiest thing to start with at the moment, I think, is to ring up your professional body in the UK and ask them if you are allowed to practice abroad. If that’s ok, then looking at getting qualifications verified in France is the next step. I really hope you find a way through this and will be most interested to hear how you get on.
Welcome Claire… congratulations on getting your Honours Degree.
Is your French any good… as you’ll need to be able to read and speak the language, here in France…
If you’re in any doubt… get going with extra lessons and improve your skills without delay… your efforts will stand you in good stead for the future.
best of luck
My French is not great I’m afraid I start French lessons in September so hopefully they will improve x
At the moment I do grief counselling,Trauma and CBT ,I do not have any French qualifications at all ,Thank you for reply
In which country will you be starting French lessons… France or UK ??
I’m presuming UK… but who knows… you need to take your time with the language… you will need decent language skills and it will be worth it in the end.
I am with the BACP at present but will definitely enquire if I can practice abroad and also see how I can go about getting my qualifications verified in France ,The getting verified is something I might struggle with as unsure how to go about doing this or who to contact in France ,Thank you so much for all advice x
We’re here to try to help, Claire! I would definitely start with BACP as you won’t be the first to try this route and I have found them quite helpful in the past (if you get through to the right person of course). They may have pointers to getting qualifications verified in France - if not, others may have better experience with that than me. @JaneJones is very good at finding the right French government information…
There are quite a number of British counsellors in France, I often see ads in the local English speaking newspapers and magazines, one idea may be to google, pick a few and send them a very sickly sweet email apologising for bothering them but asking for advice. People here are full of very useful information and I am sure you’ll get plenty, but there’s nothing more helpful often than actually getting first hand knowledge from someone who’s been through the process themselves if it’s something quite specialist like mental health treatment.
Thank you so much ,i will definitely do this ,And never thought to contact directly was more worried about moving over and not been able to work ,Think I need to slow down and get everything in place firstly,Thank you so much again for advice x
Thank you so much,it’s my dream to live in France and work as a counsellor so I’ll do and try all I can to make my dream come true thank you so much for advice x
Yes I’m Uk I will be learning French ,I’m hoping I still remember as much as I did in school I’m unsure as a 50year old if I’ll even get employed but worth a go if not I’ll have to put my dream to live in France in hold till I retire x
Welcome!
Are you thinking of restricting your clientele to Anglophones? If not, then I’d have thought you would need to be as close to French fluency as you could get in order to counsel people. Perhaps a very intensive French language course would be your best option at this stage, plus gaining experience in the UK. It’s going to be difficult, and take a while, so good luck!
I have been counselling throughout my degree so had 3 year’s experience in counselling,I will probably have to start with Anglophones clients at least for a few years till I can gain more experience in language,I am starting a intense French language lessons in September so I’m hoping to know a little before I move ,Thank you for advice x
Too many folk come to France ill-prepared and flounder… and fail…
You’re not going to be like them ! You deserve to succeed!
Just keep your nerve… work hard on your French… get all the advice and info you need… and you will achieve your dream…
Love this comment made me smile so much,I want to be well prepared and achieve what I set out to do ,I’m not going to rush moving until I have everything in place,Thank you so much I hopefully one day will be writing telling you all I made it ,Thank you again x
You won’t be able to work in France until you have the relevant ones and you won’t get those until you can read write and speak French properly. You will need to have your degree validated here too. Plug away at your French lessons
Why do you want to come and live in France? Have you been here before for any length of time?
Voila!
Thank you xx