We’ve been working on ways to improve your experience here at Counselling Connection, and some progress has already been made on that front. To keep you in the loop of developments, here are some updates:

Getting to Know the Institute

If you would like to know more about the Diploma of Professional Counselling and the Institute, you can now watch it in three great videos: In the first video, Sandra Poletto, CEO, provides a history of the Institute, discusses courses we offer, and provides an insight into the demand for counselling services. Dr Clive Jones, Education Manager and protagonist of our second video, outlines in detail the structure of the Diploma, how the course is delivered, and its industry application. 

Finally, Rob Carrigan (Support Manager) talks about the Institute’s Support Services and the role these services play in helping students make the most of their career options. These videos can be accessed from the Blog’s right-side column, at the ‘Course Information’ link category. For further information about AIPC’s educational programs, you can also download our course prospectuses.

Top Content, Zero Cost

Our latest eBook, AIPC’s Counselling Dilemmas, is now also available for download from this Blog. This 52-page publication showcases 18 professionally-written counselling dilemmas, followed by comments from qualified counsellors, psychologists and mental health professionals. AIPC’s Counselling Dilemmas eBook has been divided into three main categories: Relationship and Family; Ethics, Values and Boundaries; and Situations of Risk.

The eBook is available at our ‘Free Publications’ link category, along with our three previous eBooks and two electronic copies of our quarterly Journal – ‘Professional Counsellor’.

Navigation Matters

We’ve published over 250 posts since early 2007 – and as a result, we have become constantly aware that with all this information, it is sometimes difficult to find specific topics within the Blog. This issue is aggravated when you are looking for post-series where individual posts can be scattered amongst older posts and within different months.

Our new link category, ‘Archives – Post Series’, brings a practical solution to navigation nightmares! This category allows you to directly access the first post of each published series! And there is more to it – each initial post also includes links to all follow-up posts, which makes it simple and easy to read the whole series without having to search page-by-page, post-by-post or month-by-month.

There are currently 16 post-series which can accessed via this express system. This section will continually be updated as we published more posts. Tip: If you are looking for posts which are not from a post-series, you can also use our Search Box or the ‘Archives’ links to find them.

That’ll be it for now. We are continually working to make Counselling Connection an even better learning tool for your personal and professional development. Please leave your comments and suggestions as we’re always considering them in our development schedule.

See you soon!

Editor.

The AIPC Online Article Library has been updated and it is filled with great content for mental health professionals and personal development enthusiasts. There are currently 101 articles, divided into 20 categories.

The articles in the library derive from a variety of sources; including publications such as the Institute’s quarterly Journal “Professional Counsellor” and our fortnightly eZine “Institute Inbrief”, and post-series published here at Counselling Connection (and compiled into comprehensive articles).

All currently live articles can be accessed, printed and distributed at no cost; and can also be re-published as long as the Institute’s copyrights are acknowledged (a copyright notice is already included at the bottom of each article).

The RSS Feed - http://www.aipc.net.au/articles/feed.xml

One of the most practical components of the online library is the ability to syndicate articles via a RSS feed. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it is, in simple terms, a process of accessing and sharing content via the internet.

The video below, streamed directly from YouTube and created by CommonCraft, explains with more details what RSS is, and how you can use it:

An example of the use of the Library’s RSS feed can be found at the Counselling Academy website. Each time a new article is published at the Library, the Academy website’s frontpage is updated via the RSS feed (see image below).

We welcome you to visit the Institute’s online article library at www.aipc.net.au/articles and augment your personal and professional development.

Notice to Authors:

If you have a knack for writing, send an article for review. If approved, your article could be read by over 16,000 industry members (via our eZine) and also published online at the Library.

Here’s another update from the HQ of Counselling Connection!

Reviews

As usual, we have been constantly working to bring out the best possible content to our readers.  Since the launch of our new programs, including the Bachelor and Vocational Graduate Qualifications, the education team has been working in fast-pace to ensure that our students, readers and affiliates are making the most out of their learning.

The Institute Inbrief eZine reached its 75th publication, and each edition is filled with varied and high quality content for counselling and mental health enthusiasts. The eZine’s popularity is also on its all-time peak, with over 16,000 readers having joined the email database (we expect over 20,000 by the end of the year).

But Inbrief is not the only popular free resource the Institute has to offer – Counselling Connection is also reaching new heights! Australia’s most popular counselling Blog is becoming one of the world’s most prominent portals in the field. There are over 230 already published posts, and the Blog’s stats show an excess of 500 unique visitors a day. In a recent search (today) for the keyword ‘counseling’ at the Google Search Engine, Counselling Connection was ranked 3rd out of 64,200,000 sites (see image below) – second only to Wikipedia!

Counselling Connection 2.0

We all know that the secret behind any great Blog is incessant development. We currently publish an average of 3-5 posts a week; and now that the Blog is filled with quality content, we’ve been thinking about ways to improve its functionality and navigation. This is where the Counselling Connection 2.0 project comes in.

This new project is currently at the planning stage, and some areas of improvement that have already been identified include: content (new topic-areas and categories); indexing (sub-categories to facilitate research and navigation); resources (easier access to eBooks, videos and other learning materials); keyword-tracking (a better way to find the most popular keywords at the Blog); and more.

If you have would like to add your input to this project, simply write your ideas to blog@aipc.net.au or leave your comments below – our development schedule will always evolve around your needs!
 
Final Notes

If you haven’t yet subscribed to our notification service, via the box on the right-column of Counselling Connection, you could miss out on YOUR copy of our new eBook. This eBook is a 52-page publication which will be distributed at no cost, exclusively to Counselling Connection subscribers.

We will keep you update on that, and any other further developments. That’s it for now!

Editor.

As a reader of Counselling Connection, you should be acquainted with the terms ‘RSS’, ‘Podcasting’ and ‘Feeds’. They are the backbone of a Blog’s functionality (and what makes them such a great tool for learning)!

These terms, along with many others such as ‘Social Networking’, ‘Social Bookmarking’, ‘Wikis’ and more, are part of a movement which specialists call web 2.0.

According to Wikipedia, Web 2.0 “is a term describing a trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies”.

In the context of learning, web 2.0 is playing an increasingly important role by making information access (and delivery) almost effortless. Counselling Connection is a direct result of this trend, and as long as our team keeps producing high quality content; the learning opportunities are limitless.

Making the Most of Your Learning

To assist you develop awareness towards new web technologies, we’d like recommend a website which features simple, down-to-earth video shows explaining the basics of RSS, Podcasting, and other Web 2.0 terms. 

Common Craft uses “video and paper to make complex ideas easy to understand, presenting subjects “in plain English” using short, unique and understandable videos in a format they call Paperworks”.  It is an interesting free resource that you, as a Counselling Connection reader, can take advantage of.

Here’s a sample video, titled “RSS in Plain English” (streamed from YouTube). For more videos shows and information, visit their website at www.commoncraft.com/show.

Ps: In the past week we’ve received over 200 subscription requests to our Blog notification service. Make sure you are also part of this list by adding your email to the right-side column, under the eZine registration box. Only subscribers of Counselling Connection will be invited to the exclusive launch of our new eBook, at the end of the month.