Student Placements

Student Placements 2026

Thank you very much for your interest in doing a student placement with us.

We are not currently accepting new applications, as the call for September 2025 placements is now closed. A new call for student placements will open in the upcoming months. If you would like to stay informed and be contacted when opportunities become available, please click here.

Please note that, as part of our safer recruitment process, we are unable to accept CVs. Kindly do not email CVs or any other documents unless specifically requested. When the call for student placements is open you will be able to download and submit an application form from our website.

For more information, please contact Adriana Burciaga at adriana@cambridgeacornproject.org.uk

About Placements at Cambridge Acorn Project

Cambridge Acorn Project is a well‑respected therapeutic charity in Cambridgeshire. We provide holistic, trauma‑informed support to children and families who have experienced trauma and who are facing financial hardship. As a responsive, justice‑focused organisation, we work to ensure that children and their families who have lived through adverse experiences can access meaningful support quickly, safely and without unnecessary barriers.

Each year, we welcome trainee counsellors and therapists to join us on placement. Our placements offer students the opportunity to work therapeutically with children and young people (CYP) in a relational, trauma‑informed way. This is a valuable opportunity to gain real‑world experience within a supportive, reflective and ethically robust environment.

What’s in it for you

A placement with Cambridge Acorn Project offers:

• Specialist experience in trauma‑informed therapeutic work, supporting children and young people who have lived through adversity.

• Long‑term therapeutic work, giving you the opportunity to build depth, consistency and meaningful relationships with CYP.

• Monthly line management and casework supervision (non‑clinical), delivered by qualified and experienced therapeutic practitioners who provide guidance on safeguarding, risk, case formulation and reflective practice.

• A supportive team culture, with opportunities for reflective discussion, learning from colleagues, and exposure to whole‑family and community‑based therapeutic approaches.

• Experience within a social‑justice‑driven charity, where accessibility, relational practice and ethical decision‑making are central to our work.

• Opportunities to contribute to wider therapeutic or creative projects, depending on your interests and service needs.

Please note: Trainees are required to arrange and fund their own clinical supervision in line with their training provider’s requirements. Cambridge Acorn Project does not provide clinical supervision.

Placement Structure

Our placements are primarily long‑term and focused on therapeutic work with children and young people, typically of primary or secondary school age.

There may be occasional opportunities to work therapeutically with adults—usually parents or carers of the children we support—depending on service demand. However, we are not able to offer placements that involve working exclusively with adults.

More information coming soon!

We are committed to safe and inclusive recruitment

Safeguarding and safer recruitment process

Safeguarding is at the heart of Cambridge Acorn Project including our safe recruitment processes. We undertake safe recruitment checks on anyone who wants to work with us as we work with children and adults at risk. This means that all our roles which have contact with services users or access to sensitive information, including this position, require an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check as well as two references.

This post involves working directly with children and/or vulnerable adults (as well as the processing of sensitive information connected to this under the Data Protection Act 1998). If you are disqualified from working with children or vulnerable adults, we are unable to offer you any posts that involve working with these groups. Across the UK, it is an offence for an individual who has been barred to apply for a regulated position.

Self-disclosure

If you are shortlisted, we will ask you to complete a self-disclosure form. This will be reviewed before your interview.

The self-disclosure form will ask for any criminal convictions, regulatory body sanctions or disqualifications from working with children or vulnerable adults, as well as any police or social services enquiries undertaken following allegations made against you. We may ask about this during the interview.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion

Cambridge Acorn Project believes in a world that is equitable, safe, and free from abuse and coercion and we apply these principles to every part of our organisation fostering equality and inclusion in everything we do. We promote a culture of respect and a sense of belonging for all staff, volunteers, and service users where everyone is free to be themselves. We value lived experience, and we welcome applications from people with marginalised identities or experiences. Cambridge Acorn Project is a warm, flexible, and supportive organisation, and we want to work within a diverse collegiate team where everyone’s opinion and experience matters, and everyone has a voice.

Data protection

Cambridge Acorn Project processes data in line with The Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR. For more information, please see our terms of service.