Please join us for an online workshop on November 13th (12 pm-4 pm Mountain/Alberta time) and December 11th (12pm -3pm Mountain/Alberta time)

In early 2026 a psychologist I greatly trust and admire encouraged me to draft a policy about what is included in my documentation, and I thought this was a great idea. A policy will help me by giving me a chance to engage in reflective practice about documentation, to identify any concrete questions or blind spots I need more information about, enhance my informed consent conversations about documentation, and will also provide a structured way for me to audit my own notes periodically to keep me on track. To prep myself for this task I began to review the consultation I had done around file release and documentation, as well as the messaging from trainings I had attended, the CAP standards, and some research about documentation best practices and risks associated with documentation. I also wrote an article for the CAP monitor about some of my learning, and did some more training.

I encountered an issue many of us know about all too well. There are legitimate experts who work to educate therapists about what they should document that are undoubtedly qualified, yet seem to be saying the opposite things. Some emphasize how to include as little as possible in a note and emphasize the risks of over-documentation, and others state “if it isn’t in the record it didn’t happen” and emphasize the risks of under-documentation. I have concluded that there are real risks associated with both over and under documentation, but there isn’t much content that seems to bring together all this information to help us balance these risks in a way that helps us feel secure about what to write down. I think I have concluded that there are certain kinds of information that I want to document to a high degree of detail, and other types of information that I do not think belong in my files, and I have also concluded that part of the reason that there is not “one template or set of rules to rule them all” is that there is not in fact any one documentation style that accounts for the different types of work we do, even though many of us are working within similar guidelines and there are some risks that we all share.

This is true workshop, which invites participants to first attend and participate in a discussion and then to go away and create a product before attending part 2. The goal is personal reflective practice and integration of wise advice many of us have been given about over AND under documentation in the context of the work that each of us does.

Disclaimer:

• I am not a lawyer or a forensic expert that is going to help you write a “court-proof” or “Reddington proof” note (spoiler: lawyers and forensic psychologists can’t agree on what should be in our notes either, lol). This workshop is about acknowledging that we need to make sound and reasoned decisions about our documentation that balances risks of both over and under documentation, meets our standards, and facilitates reflective practice, with the knowledge that that these risks might not be the same for all of us depending on the work we do, and that no one is going to be able to make our documentation decisions for us. I am not going to secretly uncover a note that protects you from all risks. I’m as disappointed as you are that no one is going to do this for us.

The workshop will be online, and in two parts. Part 1 will cover:

• What defensive documentation is and why we want to avoid it

• A review of two messages we get about documentation - those that emphasize the risks of over-documentation and those that emphasize the risks of under-documentation and a discussion of those risks

• Ideas about how we might balance the risks of over and under documentation

• A review of note templates and some possible risks and benefits of some common styles of templates

• Things that could be included in a documentation policy and how a policy might be different depending on your areas of practice

Between parts 1 and 2 participants will be encouraged to create a documentation policy for themselves, and in part two we will workshop our policies. I will share my own policy and my reasoning, and others will be invited to share things that they included in their policies, questions they had, and what if anything changed about their notes based on their policy work, in hopes that we can all learn from each other.

The cost for both parts of the workshop is 300.00. If you have questions or would like to e-transfer payment instead, you can email  crysbrownpsych@gmail.com

Side note: This workshop will NOT be taped, and the tickets are not refundable, but they are transferable, so if you are unable to come you can feel free to pass the ticket along to another person!

PLEASE BE SURE TO FILL OUT ALL THE REGISTRATION INFORMATION CAREFULLY. IF I CANNOT CONTACT YOU BY EMAIL YOU WILL NOT GET THE LINK TO YOUR WORKSHOP.