Course Coordinator:Trudi Flynn (tflynn@usc.edu.au) School:School of Law and Society
UniSC Sunshine Coast |
Blended learning | Most of your course is on campus but you may be able to do some components of this course online. |
Please go to unisc.edu.au for up to date information on the
teaching sessions and campuses where this course is usually offered.
This is an experiential course that continues to build on the knowledge and skills you learnt in the first trimester, and is designed to be flexible and responsive to urgent issues that may arise during your Internship. Creativity and initiative for moving into new situations in your counselling practice will be encouraged and developed. This course introduces the techniques of Grief Therapy; the psychological recovery from trauma, and the place of transpersonal or spiritual orientations within the profession of counselling.
| Activity | Hours | Beginning Week | Frequency |
| Blended learning | |||
| Tutorial/Workshop 1 – On campus workshop - 3 hours | 3hrs | Week 1 | 11 times |
700 Level (Specialised)
12 units
| Course Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this course, you should be able to... | Graduate Qualities Completing these tasks successfully will contribute to you becoming... | |
| 1 | Acquire a body of knowledge and skills that will extend your understanding of the counselling profession and in particular the recent developments in counselling practice both nationally and internationally. |
Knowledgeable Creative and critical thinker |
| 2 | Have the technical knowledge and skills to discern and evaluate your counselling practice with clients recovering from loss and trauma. |
Creative and critical thinker Ethical |
| 3 | Respond sensitively to clients experiencing existential or spiritual challenges. | Creative and critical thinker |
| 4 | Demonstrate an understanding of the in-session application of concepts, theories and interventions of grief counselling and grief therapy |
Knowledgeable Creative and critical thinker Ethical |
| 5 | Create and sustain an ethical therapeutic relationship with persons through a bereavement and mourning process and assist them to make meaning of their experience linking individual wellness to community wellbeing. |
Creative and critical thinker Ethical Engaged |
Refer to the UniSC Glossary of terms for definitions of “pre-requisites, co-requisites and anti-requisites”.
COU702 and enrolled in Program AR708
Not applicable
Not applicable
Not applicable
Not applicable
Standard Grading (GRD)
| High Distinction (HD), Distinction (DN), Credit (CR), Pass (PS), Fail (FL). |
Reflection and review of all content is encouraged in weekly workshops, and feedback will be given in class.
| Delivery mode | Task No. | Assessment Product | Individual or Group | Weighting % | What is the duration / length? | When should I submit? | Where should I submit it? |
| All | 1 | Activity Participation | Group | 0% | 20 minutes |
Week 4 | In Class |
| All | 2 | Essay | Individual | 30% | 2000 words |
Week 6 | Online Submission |
| All | 3 | Oral | Individual | 40% | 20 minutes of a full 50 minute session. |
Week 9 | Online Submission |
| All | 4 | Essay | Individual | 30% | 2000 words |
Week 12 | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check |
| All - Assessment Task 1:Applying grief and loss models to a fictional film character | |||||||
| Goal: | This formative assessment will be part of Week 4 workshop for COU705. In groups of three, you will analyse the needs of a fictitious film character who has undergone a major loss, and apply your knowledge of working with loss and bereavement, design and outline a plan for counselling the person. The plan needs to demonstrate awareness of how counselling could support the clients issues. As a team you will also indicate activities that might be useful and supportive for at least the first three sessions with this client. |
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| Product: | Activity Participation | ||||||
| Authorship Statement: | |||||||
| Format: | In class presentation. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Collaboration, Organisation, Applying technologies |
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| All - Assessment Task 2:Reflective Essay - Spirituality in Counselling | ||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | To create an essay that reflects on aspects of your personal and professional development in terms of therapeutic areas where spirituality or transpersonal sensitivity would be appropriate and supportive within the discipline of counselling. |
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| Product: | Essay | |||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | ||||||||||||||||
| Format: | This essay is an overall personal reflection on your professional development through the Masters course as well as during Internship. You will highlight skills, knowledge and experiences in this course and in your counselling practice where spirituality or transpersonal sensitivity were appropriate, relevant or required. In the essay you should note what might be your 'growing edge' ie any areas you feel may need further development in your future professional and personal attitudes and practices in order to enhance your counselling practice. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Problem solving, Applying technologies, Information literacy |
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| All - Assessment Task 3:Grief and Loss Role Play | ||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | To apply the techniques of Grief Therapy to a client in a role play. |
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| Product: | Oral | |||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | ||||||||||||||||
| Format: | Record a live role play with a student client, giving the client a full 50 minute session and presenting the 20 minutes of the session that demonstrates some or all of your intervention by using timestamp to indicate where your chosen 20 minutes starts. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Problem solving, Organisation, Applying technologies, Information literacy |
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| All - Assessment Task 4:Essay reflecting on your role play | ||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | To reflect on your ability to apply theory to practice in your role play, highlighting models and theories used, and critiquing your skills and abilities in the role play session. |
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| Product: | Essay | |||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | ||||||||||||||||
| Format: | Formal written essay demonstrating the ability to apply theory to practice. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Collaboration, Problem solving, Organisation, Applying technologies, Information literacy |
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A 12-unit course will have total of 150 learning hours which will include directed study hours (including online if required), self-directed learning and completion of assessable tasks. Student workload is calculated at 12.5 learning hours per one unit.
Please note: Course information, including specific information of recommended readings, learning activities, resources, weekly readings, etc. are available on the course Canvas site– Please log in as soon as possible.
You need regular access to the resource(s) below. Many texts are available as ebooks through the Library at no additional cost.
| Required? | Author | Year | Title | Edition | Publisher |
| Required | Judith Murray | 2015 | Understanding Loss | n/a | Routledge |
| Recommended | Robert A. Neimeyer | 2016 | Techniques of Grief Therapy | n/a | Routledge |
Not applicable
Academic integrity is the ethical standard of university participation. It ensures that students graduate as a result of proving they are competent in their discipline. This is integral in maintaining the value of academic qualifications. Each industry has expectations and standards of the skills and knowledge within that discipline and these are reflected in assessment.
Academic integrity means that you do not engage in any activity that is considered to be academic fraud; including plagiarism, collusion or outsourcing any part of any assessment item to any other person. You are expected to be honest and ethical by completing all work yourself and indicating in your work which ideas and information were developed by you and which were taken from others. You cannot provide your assessment work to others. You are also expected to provide evidence of wide and critical reading, usually by using appropriate academic references.
In order to minimise incidents of academic fraud, this course may require that some of its assessment tasks, when submitted to Canvas, are electronically checked through Turnitin. This software allows for text comparisons to be made between your submitted assessment item and all other work to which Turnitin has access.
Eligibility for Supplementary Assessment
Your eligibility for supplementary assessment in a course is dependent of the following conditions applying:
(a) The final mark is in the percentage range 47% to 49.4%; and
(b) The course is graded using the Standard Grading scale
Late submissions may be penalised up to and including the following maximum percentage of the assessment task’s identified value, with weekdays and weekends included in the calculation of days late:
(a) One day: deduct 5%;
(b) Two days: deduct 10%;
(c) Three days: deduct 20%;
(d) Four days: deduct 40%;
(e) Five days: deduct 60%;
(f) Six days: deduct 80%;
(g) Seven days: A result of zero is awarded for the assessment task.
The following penalties will apply for a late submission for an online examination:
Less than 15 minutes: No penalty
From 15 minutes to 30 minutes: 20% penalty
More than 30 minutes: 100% penalty
For more information on Academic Learning & Teaching categories including:
For more information, visit https://www.usc.edu.au/explore/policies-and-procedures#academic-learning-and-teaching
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For course-specific questions, contact your teaching staff or Course Coordinator.
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