*Article contribution by Maureen Werrbach, LCPC for TherapyNotes.
“As counselors and social service workers, one thing we learned in grad school was to check in with our clients at each session to see how they felt about the work being done during the session. We were taught that it was a way for us to get consistent feedback about the therapy process and our relationship with the client. As group practice owners, striking the right balance of providing clinicians with autonomy and ensuring that clients can give feedback about the practice and staff can sometimes feel like a tightrope walk.
First things first: We should, as clinicians first and as a business second, be sure we know how clients feel about their work in sessions. That is how we grow, make changes, and give ourselves a nod of a job well done.
Secondly, it’s standard business to have a way of evaluating employees’ work. In any business, the work we do has to be measured so that we know where we need support, and as business owners, where there are gaps in how our clients are being supported. Group practice owners who don’t have a structure for receiving feedback from clients about their experiences are missing information about how the clinicians (and administrative staff) in the practice are doing. We rarely get to see how the therapists we hire do therapy, so we need to ask the right questions during the interview process and make sure we have a process for evaluating their work.
So, how can we get feedback from clients about our clinicians’ and administrative staffs’ work? Surveys.”
