Editor’s Word: Our Could 2024 mini-series on the BCC Grace and Reality weblog addresses the usage of expertise in biblical counseling. On this last article, Julie Lovette explains the way to successfully handle your counseling ministry utilizing Biblicare. In different contributions to the collection, Josh Stephens explores the advantages of utilizing expertise to create your individual diagrams, illustrations, and pictures to make use of within the counseling room, Jim Burke affords ten expertise issues for digital counseling suppliers, and Garrett Higbee shares the advantages of Care Monitor Case Administration System.
Have you ever ever needed to dig by a packed submitting cupboard or inbox to search out an consumption kind? Tony did. The extra counselees requested counseling, the extra cluttered his counseling workplace grew to become. Group slipped additional and additional away, which brought on a few of their counselees to fall by the cracks. Folks at his church would request counseling however by no means ended up receiving it as a result of neither Tony nor anybody else had an correct means of realizing who was ready to be endorsed.
Tony looked for a biblical counseling administration device however couldn’t discover one. So he reached out to Bob, a programmer he knew. He instructed Bob that he wanted a safe, cloud-based web site to arrange and handle every part in a single place. He wanted a strategy to schedule appointments, report session notes, assign homework, view their waitlist, and oversee his ministry. He additionally wanted counselees to have the ability to fill out pre-counseling varieties on-line, in addition to be capable to do homework and message their counselor by a safe portal.
Bob and his workforce labored on Tony’s request. After the web site was completed and Tony’s ministry was lastly working easily, Bob discovered that different biblical counselors had the identical issues Tony used to. Bob then launched into a mission to assist biblical counselors spend much less time managing their ministries in order that they might spend extra time offering biblically-based counsel. Thus, BibliCare was born! At present, a whole bunch of church buildings and practices use BibliCare to handle their ministries. Right here’s why:
Preserve Pre-Counseling Types Confidential
Has a counselee ever emailed you their Consumption Kind and/or Private Knowledge Stock (PDI)? Consider:
- Your counselee’s partner or youngsters could use your counselee’s PC or telephone. An 11-year-old woman might get on her dad’s laptop, open his e mail, and find out about his porn habit by studying the PDI.
- Your church’s e mail could also be hacked.
- Your counselee could use a free e mail supplier. Free e mail suppliers have been identified to scan the contents of emails and accumulate info for advertising and marketing functions.
- Your counselee could use their work e mail. Your counselee’s boss owns the e-mail, so there’s a risk that they might verify this e mail and discover out that your counselee has suicidal ideas.
Right here’s one other query: have you ever ever shared a hyperlink utilizing Dropbox or Google Types? I do know of 1 counselor who by accident shared a hyperlink to all of her counseling information with a counselee.
In no matter means varieties go from one hand to the opposite, make certain that your methodology is safe. Keep in mind, “The prudent sees hazard and hides himself, however the easy go on and endure for it” (Prov. 27:12). So, if e mail and link-sharing aren’t safe choices, how can counselees securely ship you their pre-counseling varieties? How would you confidentially share these varieties with their counselor?
In-person communication is usually a nice, secure choice. However should you’re like me and discover this methodology inconvenient in your ministry, counselees might use BibliCare to fill out their pre-counseling varieties on-line. Their assigned counselor might then log in and evaluate the varieties.
Get rid of Issues When Scheduling
Nearly each week, a counselor tells me in frustration that they don’t know who’s assembly with whom, which rooms are getting used, and/or whether or not or not some appointments even occurred. They’re normally relieved (generally curious) after I reply that they’ll use BibliCare to:
- Know who’s assembly with whom (should you’re an admin or secretary—counselors can’t see any info relating to a counselee except they’re the individual counseling them).
- Know if an appointment befell.
- Stop double reserving by realizing which rooms have been booked for counseling.
- Assist stop no-shows through the use of automated textual content or e mail reminders.
Stop Unauthorized Folks from Taking a look at Your Session Notes
Do you retain your counseling notes in a submitting cupboard or your automotive? One counselor instructed me about how a counselee kicked down the door of their counseling workplace, grabbed a private merchandise that they had left behind, and stormed out. Whereas the advisors have been ready to get the door mounted, somebody seen that the submitting cupboard of session notes was open and had been searched by.
To stop an issue like this, hundreds of counselors use BibliCare to kind in or scan their session notes. A co-counselor, fellow/supervisor, or administrator is ready to evaluate the notes, however no different church members or workers can learn them. I feel it’s a superb follow to have your session notes reviewed. This fashion, you possibly can “hearken to recommendation and settle for instruction, that you could be achieve knowledge sooner or later” (Prov. 19:20).
Assign Homework
My household’s church has a good-sized library of counseling assets. Utilizing BibliCare, you possibly can assign homework out of your ministry’s useful resource library, have them full a journal on-line, or do nearly every other type of homework. This prevents individuals from forgetting to do their homework and lets you evaluate what the counselee has finished earlier than the session. I imagine it’s higher to have satisfactory time to prayerfully replicate on the counselee’s accomplished homework prematurely, fairly than making an attempt to rapidly provide you with a Proverbs 25:11 response within the second (“A phrase fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”).
Have Oversight
One counselor instructed me he needed to make month-to-month counseling experiences for the elders. He was over the moon after I confirmed him the way to make the report with BibliCare in below a minute as a substitute of two to 3 hours, as he was accustomed to.
Whenever you assign a counselor in BibliCare, you possibly can see who’s counseling whom, view every counselor’s caseload, view the waitlist, and see who is offered to take every case with out asking your counselors something. You too can use BibliCare to trace the progress of every counselee and discover out what sorts of circumstances your ministry noticed essentially the most.
Since 2016, hundreds of biblical counselors have requested my workforce at BibliCare and me for assist managing their ministries. A number of have instructed me they have been taught the way to counsel, however nobody confirmed them the way to arrange or streamline the counseling course of. If you happen to’re in the identical boat, you possibly can learn our complete information on the way to arrange a biblical counseling ministry. Or, should you’d like to speak with me personally about the way you’re managing your ministry, be at liberty to join with me over the telephone.
Questions for Reflection
- How can I higher defend my counselees’ privateness?
- How can I achieve clearer oversight of my ministry?
- How can I arrange my counseling information?
- How can I stop individuals from slipping by the cracks?
