Four Questions to Settle Before You Become A Counsellor in Australia

Most people who ring us about studying counselling have already decided they want to help people for a living. A handful of practical questions are always at the top of their mind, and we break them down for you here.

Should I do the CHC51015 Diploma of Counselling or the CHC52025 Diploma of Community Services? Will a diploma still count once the new National Standards arrive? Can my clients claim Medicare? And will any of this matter if people are talking to chatbots instead?

This guide answers each one using current reputable Australian sources and is a must-read for anyone considering becoming a counsellor in Australia.

 

Key takeaways

•     Counselling suits you if you want to sit with people and work through what is troubling them. Community services suits you if you would prefer to coordinate support, manage cases and link people with housing, funding and other services.
•     The National Standards were published in October 2025 and endorsed by the Health Minister, but they are not yet in force. A diploma places you at Career Stage 1 of the new standards, which includes the option to seek employment or run your own practice.
•     Counselling sessions do not attract a Medicare rebate. Counsellors typically earn their income from salaried roles, private fees, employee assistance programs, NDIS work and some private health funds.
•     Australians are using chatbots for emotional support, mostly because human help costs too much or takes too long to reach. That shows how much demand there is for affordable, qualified people.

 

CHC51015 Diploma of Counselling or CHC52025 Diploma of Community Services?

The two diplomas sit at the same level on the Australian Qualifications Framework, and they share a few units, which is why people mix them up. They train you for different jobs.

Picture a family doctor and a hospital discharge planner. The doctor spends the appointment with one person, listening, asking questions and working out what will help. The discharge planner makes sure that same person leaves with transport booked, a home care package approved and a follow-up appointment in the diary. Both roles matter, and they often work on the same case. A counsellor is closer to the first role, and a community services worker is closer to the second.

 

What the CHC51015 Diploma of Counselling helps prepare you for

The counselling diploma teaches you how to run a counselling session. You learn how to build trust with a client, how to listen properly, how to choose a therapeutic approach and how to work within ethical and legal limits. Graduates of an ACA-accredited diploma can apply for Level 1 registration with the ACA, which is the credential most employers and insurers look for.

Typical first roles include counsellor, intake counsellor, telephone or online counsellor, wellbeing officer and family support counsellor. Plenty of graduates also add counselling to a job they already hold in HR, teaching, nursing, pastoral care or management. Jobs and Skills Australia counts about 40,100 counsellors in work. Just over half work part-time and 79 per cent are women, which says a lot about how well the work fits around family and other commitments.

 

What the CHC52021 Diploma of Community Services prepares you for

Whilst not currently on IAP’s course list, the community services diploma is typically built around coordinating support for individuals, groups and communities. You learn case management, how to assess what a person needs, how to refer them to the right agency and how to run or supervise a program. Some versions include one or two introductory counselling units, but counselling is a small part of the course.

 

Two courses side by side

	CHC51015 Diploma of Counselling	CHC52021 Diploma of Community Services
Core skill	Therapeutic conversation with a client	Case management and service coordination
A typical day	Booked sessions, case notes, supervision	Assessments, referrals, home visits, agency meetings
Common job titles	Counsellor, intake counsellor, wellbeing officer, mental health officer	Case worker, community services worker, family services coordinator
Professional body	ACA accredited course with IAP.	Not accredited by the ACA.*
Work placement	Currently there is no work placement with IAP. (as at 09.10.26)	200 to 400 hours depending on the course
Private practice	Open to diploma graduates within a limited scope under the new standards	Uncommon, most roles are with agencies
Further study	You can go on to a Graduate Diploma of Relationship Counselling or consider other higher ed bachelor courses, too.	Community services or social work degrees

One more thing to watch for. Some colleges promote community services as a pathway into counselling. That works if you want both skill sets, but it is the long way round if counselling is your goal. A community services diploma on its own does not make you eligible for *ACA accreditation, because the ACA does not accept welfare or mental health qualifications in place of a counselling one.

 

Which diploma fits you? A quick checklist

Tick the statements that sound like you.

Signs counselling is the better fit

☐ I would prefer to spend an hour with one person than juggle ten cases in a day.

☐ Friends and colleagues already come to me to talk things through.

☐ I am comfortable with silence and do not rush to fix things.

☐ I can see myself running my own practice one day.

☐ I want a credential I can add to the job I already have.

Signs community services is the better fit

☐ I like solving practical problems such as housing, money and paperwork.

☐ I enjoy working with several agencies at once.

☐ I want a salaried role with a government or community organisation.

☐ I can commit to several hundred hours of placement.

☐ I see myself leading a team or a program in a few years.

Two examples, based on the kinds of enquiries we get, show how to read your ticks. Priya is an HR adviser who finds the best part of her week is the hard conversations with staff. She ticks four of the first five, so counselling suits her. Dan volunteers at a food bank and loves getting people linked up with services that can help them. He ticks four of the second five, so community services is the stronger match.

If you tick most of both lists, start with whichever role you can picture yourself doing on an ordinary Tuesday. You can add the second qualification later.

 

The National Standards: is a diploma still enough?

Counselling has never been a protected title in Australia. Anyone can call themselves a counsellor, which is why registration with the ACA or the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) has carried so much weight. The National Standards for Counsellors and Psychotherapists are the federal government’s first attempt to set one shared benchmark for the whole profession.

 

Where things stand in late 2026

•     The government funded the project in May 2023, and the final Standards were published in October 2025.
•     The ACA describes them as endorsed by Minister Mark Butler but not yet implemented.
•     In early 2026, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing consulted the profession on which regulatory model should put them into practice.
•     PACFA’s journal expects implementation to take three to five years.

Nothing changes for students overnight. Anyone enrolling now will have plenty of notice before the new system starts.

 

What the Standards contain

The Standards set out three career stages. Where you sit depends on your qualification and how many hours you have spent with clients.

Career stage	Qualification	Private practice
Stage 1	Diploma or advanced diploma (AQF 5 to 6)	Yes, within a limited scope, with a conditional license and peak body endorsement
Stage 2	Bachelor, graduate diploma through to master (AQF 7 to 9) with under 750 client hours	Yes, with a license
Stage 3	Bachelor through to master (AQF 7 to 9) with more than 750 client hours	Yes, with a license, and can supervise other counsellors

Diploma graduates come in at Stage 1. That lines up with how the ACA already works, where a diploma gets you registered, and a bachelor or master of counselling takes you to the higher levels.

 

Yes, you can start your own practice at Stage 1

This is what diploma students ask us about most, and the news is good. The Standards keep the door to private practice open for Stage 1 counsellors. A Stage 1 practitioner can work for themselves within a limited scope once they hold a conditional license and an endorsement from their peak body, such as the ACA. An earlier draft was tighter on this. After consulting the profession, the final version allows it wherever you live in Australia.

Limited scope means working with what the Standards call low-risk presentations. The exact list will be settled when the licensing program is designed, but you can expect the concerns that bring most people to a counsellor in the first place. Stress, a rough patch at work, a relationship under strain, grief, a big life change. Anything more complex gets referred on, which is what a careful new counsellor would do anyway.

If you learnt to drive in Australia, you already know how this works. On your P plates you are out on the road by yourself, getting where you need to go and building experience every week. A few sensible conditions apply, and they come off as you progress.

You are also well supported while you find your feet. Stage 1 counsellors have 20 hours of supervision a year, with an experienced practitioner to talk cases through with.

 

How your scope opens up

Your scope grows as you do. Add a bachelor’s degree or a graduate diploma, and you move to Stage 2 with a full license. Pass 750 client hours, and you reach Stage 3, where you can supervise newer counsellors yourself. The hours you log along the way are not wasted. The ACA says client contact and supervision hours carry over once you hold the higher qualification.

So the pathway is clear. Qualify, register, start seeing clients in a small practice or a salaried role, and widen what you do as your study and experience build. Plenty of people who study with us want exactly that, a way to begin earning and helping people now while they decide how far to take their study.

 

Five questions to ask any provider

1.     Is this diploma ACA-accredited, and can I see it on the ACA list?
2.     Which career stage will I sit at when I graduate?
3.     What credit will I get towards a bachelor or graduate diploma?
4.     How will you tell students when the Standards change?
5.     Do your trainers hold current registration and see clients themselves?

 

Can counsellors claim Medicare? How counsellors get paid

No. Counselling sessions are not covered by Medicare. The rebates available under a GP Mental Health Treatment Plan go to psychologists, accredited mental health social workers and a small number of other professions. A client who a counsellor pays the fee themselves unless another funder is involved.

People are often surprised by this, and some assume it means counsellors cannot make a living. The Mental Health Research Council figures say otherwise, and the pressure for change is building. In April 2026 Knox City Council in Victoria passed a motion calling for Medicare rebates for counsellors registered with the ACA or PACFA, and for Primary Health Networks to be able to refer to them directly. The reply from the federal health department pointed to the National Standards as the government’s response to those calls. The Standards are the groundwork any future funding decision would rest on, though nobody has promised a date.

 

Where the income comes from

•     Most new graduates start in salaried roles with community organisations, schools, helplines, hospitals or employee assistance providers. Pay follows the relevant award or enterprise agreement.
•     Counsellors in private practice set their own fees, and sessions commonly cost between $100 and $200.
•     EAP providers contract counsellors to see staff from client companies and pay per session.
•     Some NDIS participants can use plan funding for counselling. Workers compensation and victim support schemes fund sessions in some states too.
•     Some private health funds pay rebates for registered counsellors under extras cover, depending on the fund and the policy.

 

Will AI replace counsellors?

We hear this one increasingly, usually from people about to commit a year or more to study. Australians are already using chatbots for emotional support, and the numbers are bigger than many people expect.

•     The NSW Government’s 2026 Youth Week poll of more than 2,300 young people found 29 per cent of teenagers use generative AI to help manage their mental health.
•     A YouGov survey of 1,013 Australian adults in May 2026 found 12 per cent had used a chatbot for emotional support during a difficult period.
•     A 2026 study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research found 43.5 per cent of Australian mental health professionals surveyed use general AI tools every day for administrative work.

Those figures can look worrying if you are about to train as a counsellor. Have a look at why people are doing it, though.

 

Why people turn to a chatbot

Cost and access are the main reasons. In the same NSW poll, only 12 per cent of young people with a mental health condition said services were affordable. A chatbot is free, awake at 2am and has no waiting list. People use it because the human option is too expensive or too far away, and more trained counsellors would fill that gap.

 

What goes wrong

Orygen, the youth mental health research centre in Melbourne, surveyed community members and mental health professionals about their use of AI. Nearly half of community members (46.7 per cent) reported risks or harms, including unhelpful advice, privacy worries, possible misdiagnosis, and less human connection. Associate Professor Cross of Orygen said that “AI integration into mental health systems must be approached with caution”.

The public is cautious too. In the YouGov survey, 64 per cent of Australians said they felt uneasy about the idea of relationships with AI.

 

What this means for your career

A chatbot can offer words at any hour. It cannot notice that a client has stopped making eye contact, hold a duty of care, call an ambulance or be accountable to a professional body. Those are the parts of the job that clients and employers pay for.

The more likely change is the one already showing up in the clinician survey. Counsellors will use AI for notes, letters and research, and spend the time saved with clients. If you train now, expect to learn how to use these tools safely and how to talk with clients who have been leaning on one. Both will be ordinary parts of practice by the time you graduate.

 

What to do next

If you have read this far you are probably close to a decision. These steps will get you the rest of the way without spending anything.

1.     Do the checklist above and see which list won.
2.     If counselling is your pick, check the diploma is on the ACA’s accredited list before you look at price.
3.     Put the five provider questions to each college and write the answers down so you can compare them fairly.
4.     Think about your second step. If you might want a degree or graduate diploma later, ask now how much credit your diploma earns.
5.     Work out where your first income will come from. Pick two of the sources above and look up three local employers or EAP providers that hire for them.
6.   Call 1300 915 4977 and speak to a Course Advisor, download the brochure and let us help you on your career path of becoming a counsellor.

 

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a CHC51015 Diploma of Counselling and a CHC52021 Diploma of Community Services?

The CHC51015 Diploma of Counselling trains you to provide counselling sessions and leads to registration with the ACA. The CHC52021 Diploma of Community Services trains you to manage cases and coordinate support services and leads to roles such as case worker or community services worker.

Can I work as a counsellor with a CHC52021 Diploma of Community Services?

The community services diploma does not currently make you eligible for ACA registration. Employers advertising counsellor positions usually ask for a counselling qualification.

Is a CHC51015 Diploma of Counselling still worth doing with the National Standards coming?

Yes. The Standards have been endorsed but not implemented, and implementation is expected to take three to five years. The diploma remains the entry qualification for ACA registration. Under the Standards, a diploma places you at Career Stage 1, and further study moves you up from there.

Can I open a private practice with a Diploma of Counselling?

Yes. Under the National Standards, Career Stage 1 counsellors can work in private practice within a limited scope, which means low-risk presentations, once they hold a conditional license and peak body endorsement. Your scope widens as you add a degree-level qualification and client hours.

Can my clients claim Medicare if they see me?

No. Counselling sessions do not attract a Medicare rebate. Clients pay privately, or the session is funded by an employer, an EAP, the NDIS, a compensation scheme or a private health fund.

How do counsellors earn a living without Medicare?

Most start in salaried roles with community organisations, schools, helplines or EAP providers. Those in private practice charge clients directly, with fees commonly between $100 and $200 a session.

Will AI replace counsellors?

There is no evidence of that happening. People mainly use chatbots because human support is expensive or hard to reach, and nearly half of users in one Australian study reported risks or harms. Counsellors are more likely to use AI for paperwork than be replaced by it.

How many counsellors work in Australia?

About 40,100, according to Jobs and Skills Australia. Just over half work part-time.