Life gets messy, things get in the way. Children get sick and bosses need you to work. These are the realities of life. Often these realities are even more stressful when the chaos and pressure of domestic and family violence are present. Appointments sometimes get missed, crowded out or forgotten. That's OK, there is always something else to do in the office.
However, for us to be able to use the freed up time wisely, it is important to let is know if you are unable to make an appointment. When you let us know beforehand, we can
- Try to fit another client into that timeslot, respecting their needs and goals.
- Continue working on case notes, research etc for you or another client.
- Cancel the booking for the consulting room, if one was booked and free it up for another counsellor and client.
The other issue is that we need to remain respectful of the needs of all clients. Unfortunately domestic and family violence never sleeps and the reported incidents keep on coming in. Whilst it has happened once or twice, it is very unusual if we do not have a waiting list so unfortunately, we may have to put a pause on a counselling engagement if:
- There are three or more cancellations in a row.
- There are five or more cancellations all up.
- If there are three or more "no shows".
That is not to say that the counselling engagement is not important, indeed it very much is. However for counselling to be effective, everyone needs to be ready to fully engage. If there are other factors in life that prevent a regular routine to counselling, we need to take a pause, some time out and address the factors that are preventing participation in counselling. Perhaps what we need to do is to have a chat about those barriers. For example:
- Can't come in to the centre because of distance? OK, let's look to see if we can meet at an Outreach session in either Warwick, Dalby or Oakey. Perhaps telephone or remote sessions are better for you?
- Can't come in due to illness? OK, can we do a telephone or remote video session?
- Feel unsafe leaving the home? That's OK and is a lot more common than you may think. Can we do a telephone or remote video session? Would a remote video group session be helpful?
The bottom line is let's find a way to make counselling work for you. Let's make it meaningful, regular, routine and supportive. That may be right now, or it may be in a few months for now.
Just while you are here, a note on our procedure on safety. If you miss an appointment, we need to be keeping an eye on safety. So I will try to call and/or email you to confirm that you are safe. It's not about pressure, its about our ethical, moral and legal duty of care to all clients.