To maintain the professional integrity of the Australia Counselling directory, we have created some guidelines to assist you in creating your profile.

We regularly review counsellor profiles and reserve the right to request you to edit content that may not fit our guidelines. If you do not respond to requests, we will either edit the profile ourselves, or deactivate your profile from the directory.

It is our intention to assist you in creating the most compelling profile, so that you may attract clients and build your private practice in the long term.

Verified Listings

For listing your practice on Australia Counselling we require the following documents:

  1. Copy of your current registration with ACA, PACFA, APS or related professional association.
  2. Copy of your current certificate of indemnity insurance.

You can send these documents to us by either:

  1. Post to: Australia Counselling, Suite #1074, 6/50 Miller St, North Sydney, NSW 2060
  2. Scan your documents and email them to [email protected]
  3. Photograph your documents and email them to the above address (please ensure photographs are clearly legible).

Once we receive your documents and confirm the details, we will add the verified tick on your cover image and verified stamp to your profile, which will display on your profile and in the preview results of the listings.

Each year when you renew your membership, we will also require you to send through your current documents as well, but we will remind you of this when your renewal comes up.

Your Counselling Profile

An important requirement of Australia Counselling is that your counselling profile portray a professional image of yourself and your business. This not only helps your own personal brand and image, but also assists with the profession being recoginised as a worthy and respectful field. For these reasons, we request that you follow the guidelines below.

The following is NOT permitted within your counselling profile:

  • Profiles with no photo of the counsellor.
  • Photos of symbols, logos or banners instead of a face picture.
  • Choosing more than the areas of practice or therapeutic approaches associated with your package.
  • Use of large fonts and/or bolding, other than for one headline.
  • Use of fonts other than the default font.
  • Use of font sizes bigger than the default font, except in your headline.
  • Use of “all caps” within the copy e.g. CALL NOW TO BOOK AN APPOINTMENT.
  • Copy that is written with hyperbole, exaggeration of wording or repetition of words.
  • Photos that are provocative and do not portray a professional image.
  • More than 1 hyperlinks within the copy of each profile, with that link only going to your own website or blog.
  • Use of exclamation marks in the copy.
  • Use of different colours other than the default colour.
  • Underlining or bolding of multiple words.
  • Highlighting of words or phrases.
  • Keyword stuffing i.e. repitition of keywords for your niche

Contact and Information from Australia Counselling

It is a requirement of the site that in addition to your profile, you remain on our master email list. We will regularly send emails with site updates and developments, articles and information on how to build your private practice. We request that you remain on our master list while being a member of the site as this is the primary way that we will communicate important information about the site and your profile listing.

Your Contact Information

It is your responsibility to make sure you update your contact information on your profile and advise us of any change of email address. The contact form that potential clients use on your profile are linked to your email address, so if you change your address and do not advise us, you will not receive any email contact form submissions from your profile.

Also, if you move your private practice to another location, it is your responsibility to advise us of any change of address. We individually optimise your profile for the search engines for your specific suburb and city location. If you move your office location and do not advise us, your profile will display in the Google search results for the wrong location.

Content Responsibility

You have no responsibility for any of the content on Australia Counselling apart from your own listing. By listing you are not implying that you are endorsing, recommending or approving any of our content. By accepting your listing we are not implying that we are endorsing or recommending you or approving any content in your listing or linked sites.

Prohibited Content

You may not submit content that is owned by others and/or is not in the public domain. You may not submit or transmit anything to this site that is unlawful, threatening, harassing, libellous or offensive. You may not submit materials that would violate any law of the rights of others including copyright infringement and privacy. Infractions may result in the removal of your listing without notice or refund

Workshop/Presentation Listings and Classifieds

As part of your listing on Australia Counselling you are permitted to submit professional development workshops if you are on the Professional or Premium listing package. This will be listed under Counsellor PD Events.

These may include up to 350 words of plain text with only one active links with the exception of an email link.  The content must relate only to services that you specifically offer (not an external presenter, for example).  Information will be removed either at the end of the 3 months or the start of the course, whichever comes first. Please do not make multiple submissions as these will not be accepted.

We ask that you give us 8-10 weeks notice before your event so we have time to create your event page and promote it on our social media accounts.

Fill out this form to submit your event.

Links to Other Websites

Please note that all listings on Australia Counselling are individual listings. Please do not link to a site, within your listing, unless the link goes to your own professional site content.

If you have an individual listing page on your site, your link must go directly to that page. If you do not have an individual listing page on the site, the link may go to the homepage of the website that is part of an association in Australia or a group practice site within Australia, of which you are a part.

Australia Counselling will not link to a listing that is hosted on a site intended primarily to provide information, sell products, and/or market the expertise of other professionals who are not listed on Australia Counselling.

Please note that the link to your own site originates from the main page of your listing.  No links to secondary pages of your site are permitted.

Geographic Areas

You may be listed under the geographic areas where your office listing is located. Premium package listings will have an additional three surrounding areas near their offices added to their profiles.

Photo/Video on Website

There is always some inherent risk of increasing one’s visibility on the Internet. Australia Counselling allows counsellors to choose to have a face standard face photo or a video with their listing. By submitting a face picture or a video to accompany your listing you accept that you are doing so entirely at your own risk. Australia Counselling Directory Service shall have no liability whatsoever for direct of or indirect, special or consequential damages, relating to the presence of your photo and/or listing your information on this site.

You also understand that to create a profile on the site, it is a requirement that you have a clear image of your face. We do not permit you to have images of logos, banners, products or images of anyone other than yourself.

Renewal of Your Listing

This is an annually recurring membership. We will advise you three days before your next renewal date via email before charging your credit card. If your payment fails (e.g. expired credit card or lack of funds), we will attempt the charge three times. If your account fails to renew after the third charge, your account will be deactivated and your listing removed from the site on the day after your 12 month membership expires.

You can ask for your membership to be cancelled at any time prior to the next billing date.

Registration of a Professional Body

You agree to maintain an active status in your professional organisation (such as APS, PACFA, AASW, ACA or similar association) such that you do not allow any professional designation to lapse and become invalid. If, by some chance, this occurs you agree to notify Australia Counselling immediately.

You are also required to contact Australia Counselling if your practice is under investigation and we reserve the right to temporarily remove your listing from the site until such an investigation is completed in your favour. In such an event your listing year will resume once your full active status has been reinstated. Should your original professional status not be reinstated, for whatever reason, no refund will be provided.

Listing on Australia Counselling does not imply that we are endorsing you or recommending you, your counselling practice or any of the content that you provide for this site or your own business site. These policies are in effect until your annual renewal date and you will be required to accept the version of the policies that are in place at the time that you renew.

We do not allow student members of associations to have listings on Australia Counselling. You can list your practice on Australia Counselling if you are an Intern member of an association, however, you must clearly state in your profile that you are an Intern member.

Liability Insurance

All professionals on the site must carry liability insurance while listed on the site and send a copy of their documents to us each year.

Limitation of Liability

In no event, including, without limitation, negligence, shall Australia Counselling Directory Service, its subsidiaries, affiliates, agents, officers, directors, employees or partners be liable to you or any third party for any special, punitive, incidental, indirect, or consequential damages of any kind, or any damages whatsoever, including, without limitation, those resulting from loss of use, data, or profits, whether or not Australia Counselling Directory Service has been advised of the possibility of such damages and on any theory of liability, arising out of or in connection with the use of or the inability to use this site, its services, or materials, the statements or actions of any third party on or through this site, any dealings with vendors or other third parties, any unauthorised access to or alteration of your data, any failure in the transmission of your data, any information that is sent or received or not sent or received, any failure to store or loss of data, files, or other content, any services available through the site that are delayed or interrupted, or any web site referenced or linked to or from this site.

All registrants also understand that Australia Counselling does not guarantee that the presence of a listing on the site will result in business and/or clients as a result of that listing.

Site Outages

It is in the interest of Australia Counselling to be available to the public at all times. As with any web site, technical issues occasionally arise that require a remedy. This may include site outages. Australia Counselling will endeavour to begin the process of rectifying any site outages as soon as it has become aware of such an issue. If for any reason, the site continues to be offline for a 24-hour period, all individuals on the site will have their annual listing increased by 1 day for any 24-hour period that the site is offline. This extension will appear only in the “off line” database, not in your control panel. Should you ever require information about your renew date you may contact Australia Counselling to receive this information.

This Listing Agreement

When you renew your listing you are required to review the current listing agreement, which may change from time to time. You may always view the current listing agreement on this page. By creating a counselling profile on this site, you agree to this listing agreement.