Emotional Intelligence - Online Courses - Adult Learning

During this 6-week course, you will explore practical emotional intelligence skills to understand and manage your emotions, and build stronger relationships at home, work, and in your community. Over weekly 2½-hour sessions, you will learn the key information necessary to understand emotions and their effects on our everyday experience. Take part in discussions, reflective activities, and hands-on exercises designed to improve your confidence in navigating everyday emotional challenges.

The course will guide you through the core components of emotional intelligence using practical tools. You will learn how emotions influence your thoughts, behaviours, and relationships, and how developing emotional intelligence can support wellbeing, communication, and resilience.

The course aims to support learning to develop the 5 core EQ skills.

• Awareness of emotions.

• Exploring thoughts and beliefs about emotions.

• Recognising emotions as valuable data.

• Using healthy strategies to manage difficult emotions.

• Adopting healthy strategies for expressing emotions.

Each session includes video introductions to topics, paired or group activities, practical exercises, and opportunities to apply skills to everyday scenarios, between-session reflective journalling.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Identify at least five emotions you commonly experience and describe the physical, cognitive, and behavioural cues associated with each.

• Analyse an emotional experience and identify at least two pieces of useful information (e.g., needs, boundaries, values) that the emotion provides.

• Demonstrate three emotional regulation strategies (e.g., grounding, reframing, breathing techniques) in response to everyday challenges.

• Express an emotion clearly using appropriate emotional vocabulary and an assertive communication technique (e.g., I statements) in a role-play or real-life scenario.

• Create a personalised emotional intelligence action plan outlining at least three strategies to support ongoing wellbeing.

• Reflect on weekly experiences and evaluate progress using the provided Emotional Intelligence Toolkit.

There is no prior learning required; however, this course does require openness to engaging in group discussions with other students, working on personal development between sessions, practising new strategies and techniques, and readiness to reflect on your own experiences.

These are some useful extra reading but are not require:

 Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ – Daniel Goleman

 The Little Book of Emotional Intelligence – Andy Cope & Amy Bradley

 The Chimp Paradox – Prof. Steve Peters

As this course is online, a suitable device such as laptop or computer will be required to access the course. The link for you to join the live sessions will be sent to you once your enrolment has been completed. Please bring a pen, notebook and plain paper. If you have them, you might find coloured pens or pencils useful.

Funding and Fees

If you receive certain benefits, you may be able to take the course for free.
If money is stopping you from enrolling, please visit our funding page to see what help is available.

Living in England

To book and join one of our courses, you must live in England permanently and either:

• Live outside the devolved areas listed below, or

Live inside the East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) area (Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire).

You cannot enrol if you live in these devolved areas:

• Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)

• Liverpool City Region Combined Authority

• North East Combined Authority

• South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority

• Tees Valley Combined Authority

• West Midlands Combined Authority

• West of England Combined Authority

• West Yorkshire Combined Authority

• Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority

• York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority

• Hull and East Yorkshire

• Greater Lincolnshire

• Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority

• Cornwall Council

• Lancashire Combined County Authority

• Buckinghamshire Council

Residency Requirements (Additional Information)

If you live in the UK on a visa, we’ll need evidence of your visa to confirm funding. You can upload this when applying, and you’ll need to complete a short questionnaire.

Some exceptions include:

• Your visa must last until after your course ends.

• Asylum seekers must have lived in the UK for at least 6 months while their claim is being processed.

• You are supported by your local authority under Section 23C or 23CA of the Children Act 1989, or under the Care Act 2014.

Anyone who does not meet the funding criteria would need to pay full course fees.