Who Are We?

We are a welcoming and inclusive organisation based in the South West of England, UK. Our aim has always been to provide high quality training that really reflects modern society and its impacts on mental health. The school is an independent organisation that was born out of hope; a hope that we could raise the standard of training to provide quality and relevant lifelong learning to counsellors, therapists and other mental health professionals. Mental health matters deeply to us and everything that we do.

Meet the Founder

With over a decade of experience in counselling in private practice, education and charity settings, as well as her BSc in Psychology and MSc in Counselling, our founder Claire Nunan (BACP Senior Accredited Counsellor) made the decision to establish the School of Applied Mental Health (SAMH). Her aim was, and still is, to provide quality CPD in an engaging, accessible and affordable way as well as to help businesses and institutions improve their support to staff and customers. Claire also specialises in online only counselling. 

Our Values 

By reading our values below we hope you will feel that we share some key principles with you. Our focus is on making sure that our training is relevant to you and to the people we are all here to help. Mental health awareness has grown and grown over the last decade and we hope to encourage and sustain this effort by focusing on professionals, such as yourself, who work tirelesly to improve the support available.

Each of these values helps to shape our curriculum as well as how we act and behave as an organisation:

Understand Today’s Society

Our modern era is one of constant change. Along with the many benefits this brings us are some challenges, especially for mental health. We strive to make sure our training reflect the needs of our modern society. This also means providing training that isn’t simply a text book answer – but knowledge and skills that apply to today’s world and your own practice.

Respect the Individual 

First and foremost, we are all individuals. We have our own learning needs, styles and our own pace. We value this and design our courses to fit around you and your needs as much as possible. This includes emphasising self-care as well as client care.

Focus on Quality 

We have all sat through poor quality training before. After years of experiencing this disappointment as counselling professionals, we established SAMH to raise the bar. This means quality is at the heart of our courses. In a world of fake news, we seek to be a beacon of fact and experience. 

We are proud of our courses and work hard to make sure we provide the best student experience we can. A fundamental element of this is to be open to all feedback, good or bad, so that we can continuously improve. Feel free to view our complaints policy or use our contact us page to get in touch. 

Act Sustainably 

Sustainability, both environmental and social, is a fundamental element of how we work. We have a social and ethical responsibility to act. To read more on how we make this part of our day to day lives at the SAMH, view our sustainability page.