Tools of the Trade: Soft ware for Counselors
Tools of the Trade: Soft ware for Counselors
Dominic’s barbershop is a traditional establishment. Technology is sparse. There is one rotary phone, a TV stuck in the corner, power clippers, and a couple of hair dryers. The barber pole does not spin. The two barbers cut hair, comment on the weather or politics whichever is more volatile on a given day and toss out magazines dated prior to 1993. This was the backdrop for a fascinating conversation between a technology advocating patron and the venerable owner.
The technophile droned on about the virtues of making appointments on-line, tracking customer visits and preferences, building mailing lists, generating financial reports, offering computer simulated hairstyle demonstrations, and creating a web page. The barber answered each bright idea by either pointing to the pad of paper on the counter, the oversized calendar hanging on the wall, or by just shaking his head. The one-sided exchange ended with Dominic’s statement, I’ve been cutting hair for over 20 years.
I think I can make it to retirement without ever touching a computer. Something told me, the eavesdropping customer in the next chair, that this barber had just uttered the last word. As a Christian counselor in contemporary practice, I can identify with both sides of the debate. Counseling is a person-to-person, high touch, and relationally rich profession. Its priorities revolve around service to people. When high-tech applications are introduced, there is not necessarily a positive correlation with improved outcomes. Enough effort is required to monitor and integrate the client’s intricate physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions without adding complicated software to the interaction process. Yet, counseling is not giving a haircut. The ever-increasing expectations for assessment, accountability, and productivity make technology and other tools more attractive to and necessary for clinicians who intend to stay in the work for the long haul.
Due to my vicarious learning experience in the barber’s chair, I am going to avoid discussing software applications where the primary appeal is to offer counseling or administrative tasks slicker and quicker. Numerous software and technology options exist that can improve marketing efforts, increase communication, or institute timemanagement procedures. The possibilities may seem overwhelming, butsome applications are worth mastering when a practice or practitioner needs to streamline a particular area. The multi-site, multi-counselor practice absolutely needs smooth communication systems to enhance responsiveness to client requests as well as to manage clinical and financial data. The practice specializing in a certain type of psychological evaluation will benefit from obtaining the most advanced tools to fulfill the task. Keeping current on practice related research can be accomplished through searches on an Internet database. 1 Such options are available and useful but will not be covered here.
There will be no pressure toward practice expansion or passionate challenges to take on new ventures. All that follows has been subjected to the following screening question: How would this idea go over in Dominic’s barbershop? My goal is to suggest only a few tools of technology to keep Christian counselors vital in the work of soul care until the season arrives to retire, the Lord supplies a call into a new work, or he returns. Ideas offered here have passed the barbershop criteria: Is it sensible, simple, and straightforward? Three categories will be covered: (1) tools to assist counselors in seeking out or sifting through client information; (2) software to help strengthen the quality of clinical work by increasing depth or tracking details; and (3) applications that allow counselors to sleep easier and more restfully.
*Seeking and Sifting Information*
The classic definition of a psychological test is a sample of behavior which is assigned a value for measurement purposes? The basic theme in assessment is to collect adequate, relevant, and representative samples of behavior in order to make predications or statements about future behavior or patterns. In order to obtain these samples, it is not necessary to bury a client in endless questionnaires or condemn the counselor to tedious reading and scoring. Some form filling or checklist completion might be useful, but here is where the counselor may wa make use of available technology and developed counseling tools.2 For example, the Quick view Social History available through National Computer Systems (NCS) can be administered in an on-line format and printed in about the length of time allotted for a standard session.
The resulting report organizes information on personal history into nine major areas and provides a basic symptom screen to the clinician consistent with the standards of the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of