Advice on further study (counselling/psychology)

Hi everyone.
I'm 22 years old and recently graduated with a BA degree. However, I realised during my final year that this really wasn't the route I want to go down nor is it really a prospect for me anymore. Cutting a long story short, despite being a diligent student who always kept my head down at uni, I suffered some personal problems throughout my final year, found myself completely in over my head with my course and ended up with a really low classification. It's something I just no longer want to pursue.

Despite the crappy result of my degree, I do like studying and am thinking of going back and taking up something else, something completely different, now that I'm doing a lot better. I've had a keen interest in psychology for a while, and would really like to find out how to get into counselling or psychotherapy. Has anyone got any experience with studying at the OU? I've read that they have a couple of accredited courses and the Psychology courses that they offer are BACP-recognised. The idea of distance learning also appeals to me because it means I can earn a decent wage and study in my own time. I'm trying to be thorough in my research and don't want to do a course which will cost me a lot of money without any prospect of a job. I'm already in thousands of student loan debt from a degree I'm not even going to use, after all.
How did you find studying at the OU in terms of balancing work? Is working FT a possibility? Also, does anyone have any experience or knowledge about credit transfers? Since I already have a degree (albeit a completely unrelated one) can I still apply for a credit transfer to shorten the amount of study time/fees? Any experiences with other accredited courses to do with counselling in particular?

Thanks for any advice

PS. I'm based in NI if that makes a difference.