When to Refer Someone On (And How to Do It Without Feeling Like You've Failed)

Learn when and how to refer someone on as a Level 2 helper. Discover why enabling additional support is collaboration, not failure, and how to have the conversation.

If you're training at CPCAB Level 2, you're learning to work as a helper, not yet as a counsellor. This distinction matters. It defines your role, your boundaries, and what's appropriate for you to hold.

But here's what often happens: students develop a fear of a breach point they'll hit that means they're lacking the skills or ability to hold something. And the challenge isn't really about referring someone on. It's far more to do with abandoning ship as soon as something sounds like it could be challenging.

This reveals a kind of hair-trigger response that some Level 2 students experience. And this isn't coming from a place of judgment. It's a genuine concern and fear that students have when they don't know what they don't know and aren't sure about the procedures. Uncertainty plays a big part in this. Fear of making mistakes. Fear of doing something wrong, or causing something to go wrong, is probably at the heart of it.

Let's explore what's really going on here, what enabling additional support actually means, and how to have these conversations without making someone feel rejected.

The Real Struggle Isn't What You Think

The struggle with referring on isn't usually about holding on too long. In my experience, students look to gain additional support sooner rather than later. Very rarely do I find someone on a training course who believes they're somehow skilled enough to hold any information.

The real challenge happens in two opposite directions.

The Hair-Trigger Response

For many students, there's this quick retreat. Something feels difficult, and immediately they're thinking: "I need to refer this on. This is too much. I can't handle this."

This comes from uncertainty, from fear of getting it wrong, from not having the skills or techniques available to know how to manage that significantly. And here's what's important to understand: this isn't about the helpee needing more support. It's about the helper's own discomfort.

When you feel unable to hold something, ask yourself: is this genuinely beyond the scope of Level 2 work, or is this my own stuff getting activated? As we've discussed in previous blogs about recognising your own material, sometimes what feels "too much" is actually about what's been triggered in you, not about the helpee's needs.

The Opposite Problem

The times when there really is a challenge in referring on is usually when a student believes that helping is about giving advice, being upbeat, offering a positive take on something. When they're only reinforcing a positive mindset, which is not the helpee's but their own.

That's when it's a challenge, because that person thinks they don't need to know everything the helpee is going through. They'll simply present a positive and welcoming frame. You know, "cheer up and best foot forward, let's come up with a plan" approach.

And I think that's when students don't refer on or recognise a limit in their abilities.

They want to be that person's saviour, the solution to all their problems. But as Carl Rogers noted, people don't need to be fixed. They're not broken.

The Fear Behind Both Responses

Whether students refer on too quickly or hold on too long, underneath it all is the same fear: the fear of failure.

They don't want to feel they've failed. Rather than hold a session that's exceeding their proficiencies and qualification, they'll cut the session short because they don't feel good enough. Or conversely, they'll keep going because they want to prove they can handle difficult information beyond their ability.

There's also the fear that the helpee will feel rejected or abandoned, or that their actions will cause harm. So they tend to keep away from having the conversation altogether, even when it would genuinely serve the helpee to explore additional support.

What "Enabling Additional Support" Actually Means

Here's what's crucial to understand: enabling additional support doesn't mean the session ends or the relationship ends.

It's about working collaboratively with the individual to discuss options they might consider that could be useful for them. It's about additional support, not replacement support.

The Shift That Happens (And Shouldn't)

One of the challenges students face is this: when there's a discussion around additional support, the helper will think they're best placed to come up with ideas. They'll shift from an open listening space where the individual is heard and seen through their challenges, and suddenly everything feels like it's slipped.

Those skills are lost, replaced with: "I'm going to tell you what to do and here's where you need to go."

The helper becomes quite directive. "Right, you must call these two or three services. You must go and look at this. Should I talk to your GP for you?" They get very invasive, very quickly. And this breaks the frame of what the helper role is.

Your role hasn't changed. You still remain in a helper role. You're still holding space, listening to that person, supporting that person, exploring with that person in a collaborative way, avoiding any sense of directive terms or conditions.

It's an Attitudinal Quality

As I've highlighted in all the blogs, this is more than simply a set of skills and techniques. This is a development of an attitudinal quality towards another. It's about both generous and sustained interest, but also an approach to recognising and respecting the individual in a non-judgemental way.

When we apply our rules of what should now happen to that person (which services to seek, for example), we're imposing. We're making a judgement that the person is unable to make a decision on their own, and we're doing it for them or guiding them strongly towards it.

And this is all happening at a point where there's a power dynamic. The helpee is being vulnerable. The helper has information about them. If the helper then starts directing them, you're eroding that sense of being heard and listened to non-judgementally.

That's the biggest challenge I find within the work: students shift to being directive and advice-giving.

Additional, Not Replacement

It's about including this as part of the conversation where appropriate. It's not about the helping sessions being over. It's about: this is as far as this will go on that particular topic, and let's find ways to support you outside of our conversations. But that doesn't mean helping sessions don't continue.

These are in addition to, not replacing.

Some people will have multiple agencies or services supporting them from different angles, doing different roles. We should see our role as part of that package, a suite of things that individual is getting support with. That's a completely legitimate way of seeing it.

We are not the one-stop shop for a person's challenges or issues. Far from it. We are one point of contact in which, for one or a few areas of their lives, they will feel heard and listened to. But we're not able to extend ourselves into roles and responsibilities that are well outside of our remit.

The Ethical Responsibility

As an organisation, we're members of the BACP. Eventually, students on the Level 4 diploma or on their master's will become student members of the BACP too, and all will uphold and adhere to their ethical framework.

It's our ethical responsibility, as governed by the framework, to support those helpees whose needs exceed our abilities, proficiencies, and training. We haven't abandoned them if we do this. In fact, we're only aiding further and additional support.

The attitude that struggles the most is: "I need to be this one person for them at all times." But the reality is not that case. We can still be supportive, still bring amazing qualities to the helpee and their needs. But reality also means we have boundaries.

How to Have the Conversation

So how do you raise additional support without the person feeling rejected or "too difficult"?

I think I've already answered much of this. It's about remaining collaborative throughout and non-judgemental.

Start in the Contracting

The most important thing: introduce this early on, in the contracting of your role.

Your role as a Level 2 student of counselling skills means there are some boundaries of what is suitable for you to hold. That's defined at the contracting phase. This is why it's important to include it at the beginning of those first sessions, but also refer to it later on.

You might say something like: "I want to remind you of the limits of my role, which is to work with life, work, and relationship challenges. Things which may exceed that, we can look at exploring additional support that could be helpful if it feels more severe than what we have here."

This makes the contract a milestone of the sessions, but also clarifies what has been agreed by everyone.

Keep It Collaborative

If you feel a person would benefit from some additional support, it's about how you involve that person collaboratively to look at it.

But here's a critical point: you may think they need more support, but they may not. They may think you're perfect for what they need right now and don't want any more. That's to be respected and trusted.

Obviously, as your own limits dictate, you may have to say this feels beyond you. And you may need to get additional support yourself in terms of supervision or, if it's in the class space, additional support from your tutor.

But it's only you as the practitioner who can decide whether this feels like too much for your abilities. And if it's coming up in terms of your own material (as we've discussed in the blog about noticing what's ours), recognise what's getting in the way of sessions and what's not yours.

The helpee may want to stay in sessions if they feel you're the right fit for what they need. With that said, you can still say: "Within my role, this is as much as I can feel confident to support you with."

Frame It as Service, Not Limitation

The key is framing it as: "How best can I serve you?" Not that you're unable to do something. It's about a clear boundary.

And as we've spoken about in previous blogs, boundaries are really important. It's far better to clearly define the boundary than to overstep it and make it look fractured and messy. That will only reduce the safety the person feels.

If there are clear boundaries, respectfully adhered to, that's stronger. You as a practitioner are defining your remit very clearly, and therefore you're defining your professionalism as a practitioner too. Ethically, you're being appropriate and mindful with your role and what you do.

What Not to Do

The thing not to do is simply take over the session and direct the helpee to a particular set of services. It's not about making decisions for them.

Somehow, when they say "Yes, I want some additional support," we go into action-planning mode. That's not what we're there for. It's still a collaboration. We still want to develop the individual's agency and autonomy in that process.

If the Person Resists or Feels Hurt

Bring it into the space. Let's work through the feeling hurt. What's happening? How do we better understand the situation?

If they begin to push or resist the idea of getting additional support, how do you take care of yourself in that? Return to the contract. Affirm that boundary.

If they still want to continue pushing into difficult subjects, you can say: "I'm going to get additional support for myself so that I feel appropriately supported."

You're modelling the very thing you're discussing with your helpee. You're showing that getting additional support doesn't take away from the current relationship. It offers them a way of doing it themselves.

The Role of Your Tutor

In terms of the learning space, tutors are crucial. For us, it's non-negotiable in terms of our ethical commitments to students to make sure they're supported appropriately. The emotional container we provide is supported and helpful and useful, whether that's after lesson time or in a separate one-to-one.

This is non-negotiable for us as a provider, particularly as a member of the BACP. We want to make sure we operate as completely ready and prepared to be an emotional container for students.

On Our Courses: Learning About Local Services

One of the ways we support this on the course is by having students go off and research a range of services and supports in their local area. Not to become knowledgeable in every aspect, but to gain an understanding of what exists.

An additional bonus of being online with students coming from across the UK as well as internationally is that we learn as a group about different services in different areas. Or the lack thereof. There's a benefit of a group sense of learning when you weave that into the lessons.

The Essential Part: Continuation, Not Ending

When it comes to referring to additional support, we want to see it as a continuation of the helping relationship. It's not stopping or blocking or getting in the way of the helping relationship. It's a continuation, a furthering of it.

Seeing it in that frame should help avoid the directive guidance and advice-giving we may slip into once asked by the helpee for more support.

This is only an extension of the helper role. And when we're thinking about an extension of that role, we still remain collaborative, still remain respectful, prizing the agency and autonomy of the individual. That's why it becomes a discussion and a conversation about looking at some potential services which may be useful.

If the helpee refuses or doesn't want to engage in that, we still respect and honour it.

What we then can do is decide how we individually, as practitioners, engage with the information and material that person's sharing. It may be coming back to the contract to reaffirm that your own boundaries are likely to be crossed at this point and that you'll seek out additional support where necessary. But you'll always inform the helpee when that will happen, so they understand it's not arbitrary. There's always collaboration around that sharing where appropriate.

If it got to a point where you felt well out of your depth and the person you were helping was unable to hear your limits, then there would be a greater conversation about how to manage that and how to maintain those boundaries.

And we go back to something we need to talk about in future blogs: self-care and our own wellbeing as practitioners, and how we manage that as well.

Two Things to Protect

The simplest way to approach this is thinking about how we protect not just the helpee, but also the helper as well.

As we spoke about in the blog on limits of ability, it's about recognising that it's not just about protecting the helpee, but about the helper as well. About their strengths and weaknesses, making sure they're okay with what they hear and are trained appropriately to listen to the information being shared.

The Helper/Helpee Distinction

At Level 2, you're working as a helper with a helpee. This terminology is deliberate. It demonstrates the limits of ability at this level of training and defines that there will be material beyond the helper's role.

As you progress to Level 3 and beyond, you'll move towards identifying as a trainee counsellor working with clients. But at Level 2, this distinction is important. It frames the boundaries of what you're trained to hold.

In Summary

Principally, I would expect a student to be seeing additional support as a continuation of the helping work, still in a collaborative way, that avoids advice-giving, whilst also defining boundaries and referring to the actual contract of the role.

This is a demonstration, if nothing else, of the professionalism you hold as a practitioner, and respect for the individual, as well as respect for yourself.

Enabling additional support isn't about failure. It's about recognising that multiple sources of support often serve people best, and that your role is one valuable part of a larger picture.

Ready to Progress Your Training?

If you're navigating CPCAB Level 2 and learning to work collaboratively with helpees, understanding your boundaries, and recognising when additional support serves someone best, you're developing the professional maturity that underpins great therapeutic work.

When you're ready to progress to CPCAB Level 3, where you'll continue this development as a trainee counsellor working with clients in supervised practice, we'd love to support your journey. Our approach values collaboration, clear boundaries, and the ethical responsibility to work within your competence whilst always prioritising what serves the person best.

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About The School of Counselling

The School of Counselling is a CPCAB-approved training centre and BACP member organisation, specialising in person-centred counselling training. We support students through their journey from Level 2 helper skills through to qualified practice, with experienced tutors who understand that referring on isn't failure, it's professionalism. We're committed to providing an emotional container for our students, ensuring you feel supported as you navigate the complexities of working ethically within your limits.

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Frequently Asked Questions

When should I suggest additional support to someone I'm helping?

Consider additional support when the material being shared exceeds the boundaries of Level 2 helper work (life, work, and relationship challenges), when you're feeling consistently out of your depth, or when the helpee's needs would be better served by specialist support. However, be aware of hair-trigger responses where your own discomfort is driving the decision rather than the helpee's genuine needs.

Does referring someone on mean I've failed as a helper?

No. Enabling someone to find additional support is a continuation of your helping work, not an ending. It's a demonstration of professional competence and ethical practice. You're recognising boundaries, working within your training, and prioritising what serves the helpee best. That's strength, not failure.

How do I bring up additional support without making someone feel rejected?

Start in your contracting by clarifying the boundaries of your role as a Level 2 helper. When the conversation arises, frame it collaboratively: "How might we look at what additional support could serve you?" rather than "You need to go elsewhere." Keep it about addition, not replacement. Respect if they don't want additional support, whilst being clear about your own boundaries.

What if the person refuses additional support but I feel out of my depth?

You can still maintain your boundaries. Say something like: "Within my role as a helper, this is as much as I can feel confident to support you with." If they continue pushing into difficult territory, return to the contract. You can also say: "I'm going to seek additional support for myself so I feel appropriately supported." Model the behaviour whilst respecting their autonomy.

What's the difference between being collaborative and being directive when discussing services?

Collaborative means exploring together what might be useful, respecting their agency to decide. Directive means telling them what services to contact, making decisions for them, or going into action-planning mode. Stay in the helper role: listening, exploring, supporting them to make their own informed choices. Don't shift into advice-giving just because additional support is being discussed.

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