(As of July 2022 but may change in the future)
Please read the information below to keep yourself/your child and others safe when arriving for therapy/supervision
Following COVID-19 entering W.A and any lockdowns that maybe called; Progressive Process Psychotherapy service has been exempted from closure. We can continue to have our therapy/supervision sessions if we maintain a Covid Safe therapy environment.
This includes the following measures:
Before booking a face-to-face session:
It is requested you kindly sign the short COVID – 19 declaration form which includes asking yourself three short Covid Questions before any face-to-face sessions are booked.
In the last 14 days have you or any one in your household experienced symptoms such as Gastroenteritis Sudden extreme fatigue Fever/ elevated temperature Cough Sore throat Runny nose Difficulty breathing/shortness of breath Flu-like symptoms Changes in the ability to taste or smell?
In the last 14 days have you travelled overseas/interstate or visited any exposure sites?
Please click here to view current hot spots in W.A
Have you been diagnosed with coronavirus or recommended to self-isolate/quarantine or been in contact with a confirmed or suspected case of the coronavirus?
If there is a ‘yes’ to any of these, my preference would be for us to reschedule or to book a zoom/phone session instead. It’s during this part specifically that I really appreciate your understanding and honesty during these times.
Before you enter the therapy room:
- To reduce the number of people in the waiting area I encourage younger clients to bring only one parent/caregiver to the waiting area if needed. When possible, it is my preference that parents/caregivers stay at the bottom of the steps on the driveway. All mini communications with parents/caregivers can be made by phone/emails for the time being.
- Please note a very high standard of hygiene will be maintained; equipment, surfaces, toilet and waiting area will be regularly disinfected between clients. Adequate time has been allocated to ensure this happens. It is also a requirement that we thoroughly wash our hands between each session or use the ‘natural based’ hand sanitizer provided.
- (This next part is only required when stated.) In the waiting area, we might be required to complete the Safe W.A digital check-in before entering or exiting the therapy room, to facilitate contact tracing. If you do not have the W.A safe app, please let me know and I can add your details in manually.
Once inside:
- The therapy room has been adapted to comply with social distancing requirements. This means the chairs have been spaced a little further apart than usual.
- Water, teas, and coffees are still available inside, however, to reduce infection, I would like to limit their use. It is my preference that you bring your own water bottle, take away teas or coffees when possible.
Something to consider:
Under the government guidelines (2022) we are exempt from wearing face masks during our sessions as ‘wearing a face covering is impractical to perform psychotherapy/supervision’. Clear communication is essential and needed for the therapy/supervision process.
Having tried face masks in sessions, with little success, I have decided to follow the international approach. This includes offering you the option to reduce your face-to-face therapy/supervision contact and alternating our sessions between online/phone and face to face. Thus, after a face-to-face session, we may book in an online/phone session for the following session.
Overall, during peak infectious times, I highly encourage you to consider having solely online sessions during that time frame. From the international research the peak time frames seem to expand over a two-month period. If you are not already familiar having online sessions with the digital online platforms, I highly recommend you to practice using them to familiarize yourself. It is worth noting how many resources I use during therapy and supervision sessions are available digitally and tend not affect the flow of the session.
I am fully vaccinated with one booster shot at present and committed to continuing to have further booster shots every 3/5 months. Some therapy governing bodies are requesting to only see clients that are vaccinated; however, this is not the case with myself. I will continue to see unvaccinated clients and will inform you if PACFA (my governing body) changes their policy. All I ask is that you keep me informed if you are not vaccinated so I can keep you at the top of the list to be informed first if a case in the practice should arise.
If you find yourself feeling uncomfortable with these options, you could request to put our current sessions on hold. We can always look at resuming solely face-to-face sessions in the future when it is safe to do so.
If you are confused about any of this information, please make contact with me to determine the right option of therapy/supervision for you under the given current guidelines/climate.