This week Gloria did her presentation on loss and bereavement in children, and it was quite eye-opening. I would have loved that level of help and support when I was a youngster. She did a great job, the talk was very informative and I felt very inspired by her. She is in a protective role every day, doing what she can to help people, vulnerable young people at that, and I am in awe of her. I think she has a great basis for learning to become a counsellor as she already displays a lot of the fundamental qualities required, and she has had a lot of practical experience with kids.
Also this week we were researching contracts and we did short roleplays to present our contract ideas to other members of the group.
I had previously developed my own little introduction for use when starting a roleplay, outlining my objectives with regard to why the client had come to see me and it was nice to solidify this idea with further learning and the ideas of other group members. Both Emily and Beth came up with great initial ideas for their contracts, and gave me some good ideas as well. I purposefully positioned myself near Emily and Beth this evening with the aim of working with them in a small group – I am consciously moving out of my comfort zone and interacting with the kind of people I would normally shy away from (see my work on difference – here).
My own little introduction was: “Hello, my name is Iain and my aim today is to help you. I will do this by providing you with a safe space to talk and think about things that are bothering you. Anything you say in this room is confidential and will go nowhere else, unless I feel someone is in danger, be that a child, an adult or even you. With that being said… How’s things?”
The contract that I have written is essentially an expanded version of that, but with more emphasis on the technicalities that need to be mentioned rather than the idea that I am presenting myself as a means to understand themselves and their problems with greater clarity. I didn’t want my contract to be too wordy, or for it to be a large wall of text that a client may just want to skip reading. I want bullet points to highlight the main areas, and for it to be concise.
I’d like to keep personal details such as addresses, contact details, next of kin, payment details and such apart from the contract. They can be locked up in a safe place while the contract comes out every session as a symbolic reminder of our agreement that is present in the room. I’d like to keep working on my contract to expand it, and make it more meaningful in that respect, so when it is present in the room and the client can see it in the session, it reminds them of the agreement we made at the beginning. It could possibly remind them of how far we had come, if we were halfway through our course, or make them feel more empowered by re-reading my statement that “they are the expert of themselves”.
*The names of my classmates have been changed to preserve their privacy.
