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Child and Young Person IAPT Therapy PG Dip

London, King's Cross (Anna Freud Centre)

This is the programme information for 2025 entry

If you require details of the previous year's programme, Children and Young People’s Psychological Trainings: Therapy PG Dip (2024), click here

UK students International students

Study mode

Full-time

UK tuition fees (2025/26)

See Fees Note

Overseas tuition fees (2025/26)

See Fees Note

Duration

1 calendar year

Programme starts

September 2025

Applications accepted

All applicants: 08 Nov – 16 Dec 2024

Applications closed

Find similar courses still open

Entry requirements

Normally a minimum of a second-class bachelor’s degree from a UK university or an overseas qualification of an equivalent standard in a relevant subject (e.g. psychology) and/or a registerable professional qualification in a relevant subject (e.g. medicine, psychology, social work) from a UK university or overseas professional qualification of an equivalent standard. Candidates without a degree, but with a minimum of two years professional experience in a CAMHS (or equivalent) setting together with a relevant professional qualification will also be considered. For more information about the UCL application, please see our Applications page. For more information about applying for the corresponding job, please see the NHS Jobs Website

The English language level for this programme is: Level 2

UCL Pre-Master's and Pre-sessional English courses are for international students who are aiming to study for a postgraduate degree at UCL. The courses will develop your academic English and academic skills required to succeed at postgraduate level.

Further information can be found on our English language requirements page.

Equivalent qualifications

Country-specific information, including details of when UCL representatives are visiting your part of the world, can be obtained from the International Students website.

For this programme, please contact our UCL Graduate Admissions team.

About this degree

The programme runs full-time over one year, featuring a combination of university based teaching and experiential teaching within a Children and Young People’s (CYP) Mental Health setting.

Who this course is for

This programme is aimed at candidates who have an appropriate educational background, and preferably some experience with CAMHS, who wish to develop their skills for children and young people.

The PG Dip in Children and Young People’s Psychological Trainings: Therapy is a ‘Recruit to Train’ course and as such, prospective students must apply for both a place on the course and for one of the corresponding jobs with one of the host trusts who have successfully bid for and obtained the places. Partnerships have a preliminary stage where they bid for funding from NHS England to employ a recruit for the programme. Managers, supervisors and therapists are then put forward by these particular partners to take study on the programme. Therefore, all students on the programme are employees of their host trust.

The job and the course go hand-in-hand, and the process of applying for a job and a place on the course happen concurrently. You need to apply to both at the same time as the service should only offer employment after confirmation of the suitability of your application to UCL. You will then be offered a place on the course if the service selects you under their normal recruitment processes.

Read about what it takes to study for a Master's at UCL

What this course will give you

The programme is based and taught at Anna Freud, a national charity with a worldwide reputation. The course is run, developed and delivered by experts in the field and experts by experience. It provides specialist post-qualification training for Child and Adolescent (CAMHS) workers within the CYP PT model, focusing on the clinical areas of child mental health: anxiety, depression and conduct disorder. Skills are delivered through teaching in small practice-based tutor groups with supervision provided by employing trusts.

It is a centre of practice, research and learning, which offers treatment for distressed children and support and advice for parents, trains mental health professionals to understand children's emotional development, and carries out pioneering research into effective ways to help young people suffering emotional distress.

Students will gain a critical understanding of the CYP PT model of service change, outcome monitoring, and fundamentals of evidence-based psychological therapies to common mental health problems in childhood and adolescence (anxiety, depression, and conduct problems). Students will also develop skills in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Adolescents (IPT-A), Infant and Early Years Practitioner (IEYP) or Autism Spectrum Conditions/Learning Disabilities (ASCLD) depending on the module choice.

Read about what you'll get out of a graduate programme

The foundation of your career

Recent career destinations for this course include:

•  Mental Health Support Teams Supervisor – Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust
•  Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist – Whittington NHS Foundation Trust
•  Primary Care Mental Health Practitioner – North East London NHS Foundation Trust
•  Play and Youth Work Specialist with ASC/LD focus – University College London Hospitals Foundation Trust
•  CAMHS Clinician – Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
•  Senior Nurse Practitioner – Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Employability

CAMHS professionals will be well placed to become skilled and creative independent practitioners of their chosen speciality.

Networking

Networking opportunities can be found through:

Teaching and learning

Teaching methods include lectures, seminars, workshops, clinical practice with ongoing cases and clinical supervision groups.

Assessment is through essays, a clinical case log, case studies, oral presentations and reflective analysis.

Further information on modules and programme structure is available on the department website: Children and Young Peoples Psychological Trainings: Therapy PG Dip

Typical timetabled contact hours for the degree programme can range between approximately 6-14 hours per week.
Additionally, opportunities for independent study will be scheduled into the timetable and students are expected to undertake self-directed study throughout the duration of their course.

Termly meetings with the personal academic tutor are also facilitated for students by their programme team and can generally be expected to last between 30-60mins.

Modules

This is an NHS funded programme where students are employed by host trusts and spend half of the week in university teaching and associated activities with approximately 60% of teaching being delivered on-line and the remainder of the week are employed in their workplace setting with children and young people.

Students will complete one foundation module, based on Core Skills in addition to their chosen specific Evidence-based Intervention pathway. This simultaneous training enables the student to learn and embed the key core skills for effective therapy within the modality they are specialising in. Students will join the University course, approximately two and a half days a week with the remaining days of the week being based in their host placement /service where they will be actively delivering Mental Health Interventions to clients, as part of a graded training package. This clinical work forms a major role in the training as students then use case material for assignments and reflect on their own development of skills in line with the course aims.

The year is comprised of 4 x 30 credit modules with 6 assessments focussing on clinical work and competency.

Compulsory modules

Core Skills: Theory and Principles

Please note that the list of modules given here is indicative. This information is published a long time in advance of enrolment and module content and availability are subject to change. Modules that are in use for the current academic year are linked for further information. Where no link is present, further information is not yet available.

Accessibility

Details of the accessibility of UCL buildings can be obtained from AccessAble. Further information can also be obtained from the UCL Student Support and Wellbeing Services team.

Fees and funding

Fees for this course

UK students International students

Fee description	Full-time
Tuition fees (2025/26)	See Fees Note
Tuition fees (2025/26)	See Fees Note

Fees for this programme are available on request from the department.

Additional costs

Fee deposit information to be confirmed.

There are no additional costs for this programme.

UCL’s main teaching locations are in zones 1 (Bloomsbury) and zones 2/3 (UCL East). The cost of a monthly 18+ Oyster travel card for zones 1-2 is £114.50. This price was published by TfL in 2024. For more information on additional costs for prospective students and the cost of living in London, please view our estimated cost of essential expenditure at UCL's cost of living guide.

Funding your studies

Places are funded by the host trusts and NHS England. For further details, contact Anna Freud, or visit our website.

For a comprehensive list of the funding opportunities available at UCL, including funding relevant to your nationality, please visit the Scholarships and Funding website.

See all the ways you can fund your studies

Next steps

Applications will demonstrate:

• Why you want to study CYP Psychological Trainings at graduate level?
• Why you want to study CYP Psychological Trainings at UCL?
• What particularly attracts you to this programme?
• How your academic and professional background meets the demands of this rigorous programme?
• Where you would like to go professionally with your degree?
• The reason for your choice of specialism within the programme.

Together with essential academic requirements, the personal statement is your opportunity to illustrate whether your reasons for applying to this programme match what the programme will deliver.

Please note that you may submit applications for a maximum of two graduate programmes (or one application for the Law LLM) in any application cycle.

This programme requires two references. Further information regarding references can be found on this Selecting your references page.

UCL is regulated by the Office for Students.