SACAP becomes Africa's first academic institution accredited by IRCEP

Established in the Western Cape over 15 years ago, SACAP opened their Johannesburg campus in 2011 in order to broaden the role they play in training mental health workers for interventions in a variety of contexts and settings. SACAP is acknowledged for its distinctive blend of robust theory and skills training as well as the practical, supervised work placements it offers its students prior to graduating. SACAP's student body has grown by 30% per annum, from 200 students in 2010 to 600 students presently, including students on both campuses as well as online learners.

"We are planning to grow our student numbers to 1,000 over the next three years, while at the same time continuing to add new and innovative academic programmes. According to the Mental Health Federation of South Africa over 17-million people are dealing with depression, substance abuse, anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. These numbers underpin the need for us to play a role in accelerating the growth of South Africa's mental health workforce," says Lance Katz, Managing Director of SACAP.

SACAP currently offers six programmes, four of which have now been awarded the IRCEP registration. The programmes that have been added to the IRCEP Registry are SACAP's Higher Certificate in Counselling and Communication Skills, Advanced Certificate in Counselling and Communication Skills, Diploma in Counselling and Communication, and SACAP'S Bachelor of Applied Social Science.

IRCEP was created in 2009 to foster excellence in the education and training of professional counsellors worldwide. As an international quality assurance review process, IRCEP was purposefully designed to empower programs to develop counsellor-training curricula appropriate to their country, regions and/or culture, while simultaneously recognising the broad tenets of education and training common to the practice of counseling, regardless of practice location.

In order to promote the ongoing development and recognition of the counselling profession worldwide, IRCEP's mission is to develop standards that focus on common professional requirements for counsellor education and training programs; approve programs that meet the IRCEP standards; maintain a registry of approved programs; and create networks of counsellor educators, students, and practitioners to further develop and promote excellence in counsellor education and training. IRCEP currently has 640 programmes on its registry from a range of global educational institutions, now including SACAP.