Rany Moran graduated with a Bachelor of Counselling from ACAP in 2023. Less than one year later, she owns the company where she completed her practical training.
When Rany Moran stepped into the offices of mental health support provider Veretis, on her first day of work placement as part of her Bachelor of Counselling course at ACAP, she felt confident and job ready.
“When I went on placement with Veretis, I didn’t struggle to translate the theory I was learning at ACAP into practice,” she said. “I was really well prepared and hit the ground running.”
Rany credits her studies at ACAP with her confidence. She completed both a Diploma and a Bachelor of Counselling through the University College, graduating in 2023.
"I chose ACAP because I wanted more than just textbooks and lectures; I really wanted that real-world experience,"
Rany clearly impressed; she was offered a position with the company as a counsellor following her placement.
Now, less than one year after her graduation from ACAP, she has acquired the company and is working as its CEO.
Rany purchased the company because she said its multiple-service model aligns with the principles of counselling and mental health care she learned while studying at ACAP.
“It’s really like a one-stop shop for mental health support; we have legal, corporate, sports, and then also clinical psychology and counselling,” she said.
“This type of service goes back to the foundational aspect of counselling that I learned through ACAP; that we support everyone. Everyone matters, no problem is too big, and no person is too small.”
Head of Counselling at ACAP, Professor Vicki Hutton, said counsellors had unique skills that made them ideal for roles in businesses, community health centres, schools and beyond.
In fact, Rany is so confident in her ACAP education that she specifically sought out ACAP graduates to meet increasing demand for counsellors to staff her company’s Employee Assistance program (EAP).
“The current EAP industry really suffers from a checkbox mentality, where it’s really focusing on completing tasks rather than delivering genuine care. We want to change that by providing a personalised partnership between employees, their organisation and us as mental health providers,” she said.
“Many of the best counsellors to do that are students that come out from ACAP. They have this maturity and ability to apply the theory that they learn and the tools that they learn right away in sessions.
"You can tell the difference in ACAP graduates."
Professor Hutton said Rany’s journey from student to CEO showed that ACAP counselling graduates were among the most job-ready in the country.
“That is evident in the trust companies like Veretis have in hiring our graduates,” she said.
“From the very start of their course, they’re putting into practice the skills that they’re learning. At the end of their studies, they’re out on a supervised field placement for seven months, working with a range of people and their real-world concerns.”
