Hestia is a large pan-London charity that work with people that have experienced domestic abuse, modern day slavery, mental health issues, homelessness, and adverse life experiences. 

Hestia offers placements across a range of operational sites that provide holistic support to service users. Our structured, supervised placements help trainee counsellors and psychotherapists build client-work experience.

Our placements are demanding; and suitable for those with experience of working with complex needs and trauma.

Due to the nature of our services and service users, clients are allocated according to service need, and therefore we look for therapists who can be flexible and accept referrals from across our services either online or in person.

Hestia are committed to equal opportunities and especially welcome applications from students from Black, South Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQI+ communities, and people with visible or non-visible disabilities to fully support the diversity of clients we support.

 

Benefits

✓ A full induction

✓ Up to four clients per week (usually at least two of these will be face to face)

✓ Opportunity to work online with clients across a broad range of Hestia services and gain experience working with a wide range of presenting issues

✓  Monthly self-funded group supervision 

✓  Support from Therapeutic Services Team

✓ DBS Enhanced Checks

✓ Up to 2-year placements

✓ Opportunities to work in both long and short-term therapy settings

✓ Hestia Student Placement Service is an organisational member of the BACP

 

We require students to: 

✓ Be in their final year of a BACP/UKCP or equivalent accredited counselling or psychotherapy course

✓ Hold student membership with BACP, UKCP, or an equivalent professional body

✓ Have accumulated a minimum of 100 supervised client hours (ideally>150hrs)

✓ Hold current professional indemnity insurance

✓ Be in personal therapy for the duration of the placement 

✓ Commit to a minimum one year with Hestia

✓ Provide two satisfactory references, including one from your course tutor

✓ Commit to a monthly cost of £40 for mandatory Hestia group supervision required

 

Where will I work?

We currently have opportunities in the following Domestic Abuse services:

• Brent
• Croydon
• Ealing 
• Hackney
• Merton
• Tower Hamlets - note this is a culturally specific (South Asian) service

Note:  These services are gender specific; we can only offer these placements to female applicants who have their own transport to travel short distances between sites. These placements are for daytime sessions only (between 10:00hrs and 16:00hrs). The number of therapy sessions offered to clients in these services will be between 6 and 20 sessions.

We also have availability in the following Mental Health services:

✓ Ladbroke Grove

✓ Islington

✓ Fully online placements

 

Qualities we look for in successful applicants

✓ The Hestia Applications team looks for qualities of clinical and personal self-awareness, and cultural humility within the application.

✓ We especially welcome applicants who can offer therapy in Farsi, Bengali, Arabic, Sylheti, or Tigrinya

✓ We welcome qualified therapists working towards accreditation or more experienced therapists able to offer pre-trial therapy.

 

You may be working with clients who have diagnosed mental health conditions, and/or additional complexity.  Each of our services support clients with a broad range of presenting issues. 

How to apply:

To apply for a placement, please email: [email protected]

and attach the following:

1. Current CV
2. Completed application form

Please note that due to high demand, our application window may close at any time.  Interviews will be completed by 10th July 2026.