Applying
Applications are open. You apply on the HICS member portal, and the entry criteria are published below so you can gather your evidence first.
How to apply
Create an account with your name, email address and a password, and the portal takes you straight into the application. It asks for the evidence set out below, so it helps to have it ready.
Already have an account? Sign in to the portal.
Already a member of another professional body? Until 31 December 2026, your first HICS year is charged only for the months your current membership does not already cover. See the introductory offer.
We have emailed everyone on the waiting list. Applying is not admission: every application is assessed against the five criteria below, including the written board examination.
The application asks you to upload each of these, and every one is required before you can submit it. Each is one file: a PDF, PNG or JPEG of up to 15 MB. Scan a document with more than one page, or both sides of an ID card, into a single PDF.
If you have had personal counselling, you can include a letter from your counsellor confirming attendance: the dates and the number of sessions only.
You will also give a phone number HICS can reach you on, and you ask your referees from inside the application. For each one, give their name, relationship to you, email address and phone number, and HICS emails them a private link to give their reference to HICS directly. You need two references before you can submit, and you can ask someone else if a referee cannot help. You see whether each referee gave a reference, declined or did not reply, but never what they wrote.
Trained with Humanitas Training? Link your training record on the first step of the application, and it replaces the certificates and hours record it covers. If a Humanitas supervisor has seen you in the last 12 months, referees become optional, though you may still ask them; otherwise you need two, like every applicant.
HICS verifies your documents and considers your references. If anything more is needed, the portal tells you what, and you answer there. Once everything is verified, HICS confirms that you qualify to sit the written board examination and gives you the bank details and a payment reference for the board examination fee, paid by EFT. Once your payment is received, you prepare and start the examination in the portal whenever you are ready; there is no date to book. When you pass, you complete your admission in the portal by affirming the Practitioner’s Oath, the Code of Professional Conduct and the Complaints and Disciplinary Procedure.
If your application is refused, you may appeal. Write to the Registrar at info@hics.co.za within 15 business days of the decision, stating your grounds. The appeal is decided by three people appointed by the Board, none of whom took part in the decision.
The entry criteria
Everyone enters as a HICS Accredited Counsellor, on the same five criteria, and everyone sits the same written board examination. If your training predates the recognised-programme framework, Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) establishes your eligibility to sit it. For now, RPL applications are handled by email: if you are applying through recognition of prior learning, email info@hics.co.za before you start your application and we will guide you.
Each criterion is set out below with the evidence it needs.
A minimum NQF 7 qualification in psychology, social work or a counselling-related field, from a recognised university or other higher education institution. A qualification from outside South Africa is accepted with a SAQA evaluation.
Evidence: Your degree certificate and your academic transcript, showing the discipline and the NQF level. For a qualification from outside South Africa, also its SAQA evaluation, uploaded with the qualification’s documents. The discipline and the NQF level are shown on your directory listing; the documents themselves are not published. HICS may confirm a qualification with the awarding institution where a document is unclear.
Completion of a counselling training programme recognised by HICS against its published Entry Training Outcomes Standard.
Evidence: Evidence of successful completion. If your programme has not yet been recognised by HICS, also a formal outline of its curriculum, learning outcomes and duration, and the CVs of those who taught it.
Recognition is granted to a programme and a curriculum version, so it is normally your provider that applies, not you. You are recorded against the version you actually completed, and are, on admission, recorded as holding what it covered. You never pay HICS a fee to have your training counted: the provider pays an application fee and an annual renewal fee. If your programme has not yet been recognised, or your training goes through RPL, there is no separate fee for that assessment.
Your training decides your fields of practice. A field of practice records what your training covered. It follows from your recognised programme’s curriculum, or from further training you apply with and evidence, and it is verified before it is recorded.
Humanitas Training was the first provider recognised, and its counselling programme carries the recognition mark.
A training route the Membership Rules describe as unusual is not turned away at the door: it raises a question of judgement, and is determined by the Standards and Admissions Committee at its next scheduled meeting, against the published criteria and against nothing else.
Accumulated during or after the recognised training programme. Hours accumulated before that training began do not count.
Evidence: Sign-off by an Accredited Supervisor, a supervisor on the Approved Supervisor Directory, or an external supervisor approved by HICS. An external supervisor needs a minimum of five years in practice and must adhere to the Code.
No undisclosed finding of professional misconduct by any body, and no undisclosed criminal conviction relevant to fitness to practise.
Evidence: The declaration itself. The operative word is undisclosed: a past finding does not automatically bar an applicant, but concealing one is a matter of conduct in its own right.
Set and marked by HICS against its own published standards, and sat by every applicant, including every graduate of a recognised programme. The first four requirements establish eligibility; this one establishes competence, because completing a course is not the same as being able to do the work.
Evidence: Nothing to submit. HICS sets and marks the examination and holds the result, so this is the one criterion verified from its own records rather than from anything you provide.
The flagship designation, and the only way into membership. The fields of practice you hold, and your entry qualification, are recorded at admission and shown on your directory listing.
What membership then requires
Membership runs for twelve months and must be actively renewed, against conditions that continue for as long as the designation is held. They are set out in full on the conditions page linked below. Anyone weighing an application should read them before the entry criteria, not after.
Humanitas Independent Counselling Society membership designation. Not a statutory registration.