What to expect in this Workshop:

The workshop is four hours, all set up to first help you make decisions that are needed, along with supporting documents, anecdotes, and other resources to make this task easier. Then, we walk through the process of creating the document, together. It is accountability, and motivation, and deep care and compassion for ourselves and our clients all wrapped up in one half-day!

Like other courses you’ll find on professional wills, I discuss the reasons we need one and what makes it so important, and what’s different about this workshop, however, is that I walk you through actually doing it.  I show you how to do it, and present information that allows you to consider what is most important for you and your clients.  You won’t find another course or workshop like this one that presents these details for your consider, and also allows for the discussion time with others going through the same process, and then allows you to create the actual document.

Before you know it, you’ll have it done!

Benefits of The Professional Will Workshop:

• It’s very affordable!
• Guidance on additional information to gather and make available along with your professional will. (all those details!!)
• Electronic copies or reference to related document templates you may choose to use – according to your own needs (personal will and testament, living will, etc.)
• A free template that you can customize.  It is 14 pages long but well organized and most people use 5-6 pages of it. The ability to have all those details with your professional will is going to help your clients and colleagues so much if something happens to you unexpectedly.
• There are sections for special topics such as unique client demographics in your practice and how to accommodate that in your professional will, group practice considerations, important things to know as a clinical supervisor, and more.

***The template is best used with Adobe Acrobat, please keep this in mind for when you start working with the fillable pdf template I include with the workshop or the book.

This course is $150.  I add information as I learn it, so you get the most up-to-date knowledge when you complete it. I also can add you to my email list so I can update you later on additional information I get my hands on!

Learning Objectives

Professional development course designed to educate and assist mental health clinicians in completing a professional will, for the protection of their clients and records. Participants will learn the importance of this ethical responsibility, decisions to be made, how to document information needed for a Professional Executor, and may utilize the provided template. Participants will complete their professional will during the workshop.

• Understand the importance of the ethical responsibility of each clinician to plan for any sudden interruption of their ability to appropriately care for their clients.
• Consider multiple decisions that must be made in the process of planning for client care in the event of the clinician’s unexpected death, absence, or inability to provide appropriate care; and to make those decisions.
• Document the clinician’s directives and wishes, in their own professional will, to provide continuity of care for each client and their records, who shall act as a Professional Executor, and other decisions made in this process. (a comprehensive template is provided for this purpose)
• Understand the importance of maintaining current documentation in the event of changes in client demographics, a Professional Executor no longer being able to act in this role, and other inevitable changes in circumstances. Participant will develop their own plan for maintaining their own professional will.

Why Is It So Difficult To Create a Professional Will?

This journey began for me when I lost the colleague I mentioned above.  I had a VERY inadequate professional will in place at that time, which became even more inadequate when he died because he was my Professional Executor!   I even wrote an article titled, “How To Help When Your Colleague Dies” in August, 2017 about my experience with helping after losing him.  And yet, I had the hardest time sitting down to update and improve my own professional will.

It turns out that preparing a professional will is an unexpectedly difficult task to get done for many of us, so if that’s happening for you please know that you are not at all alone.  For me, it wasn’t until a second close colleague died unexpectedly that I was determined to get this done.  I found about 5-6 templates that did not have a lot of information in them and at that time, I couldn’t find any courses to help guide me. I had so many questions!

It was such a hard time for me, I decided to create what I was missing!  It is my dream to make this a part of every therapist’s private practice start up so you are prepared from the beginning.

Do I Need An Attorney to Make a Professional Will?

I do not provide legal advice in this workshop.  The workshop is designed to step through and discuss our template and the decisions commonly needed in the event of a mental health professional’s death or incapacitation.  We recommend getting an attorney’s advice for your specific requirements based on your practice, your location or any other factor. Many of our colleagues do the workshop first, to get all those pesky decisions out of the way, and then engage an attorney to make sure that what you have prepared works for you in your situation and with the laws in your area. I’ve had attorneys reach out to me to thank me for this workshop, and for helping people through the most time-consuming part, saving their clients money in the long run.

Presenter:

Cathy Wilson, LPC, ACS, has been in the mental health field since 2005.  She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Colorado and Arizona and is also an Approved Clinical Supervisor.  She support clients in outpatient counseling and advocacy as well as being an author, speaker, and consultant.  She has conducted Professional Will Workshops since 2019 and has also written a book on this topic, titled, One Last Act: A Mental Health Clinician’s Guide to Professional Wills.

Registration, Questions, and Concerns should be directed to Cathy Wilson, LPC, ACS:

+1 303-801-7878

cw@lifepathscounseling.com

7906 S. Flower Ct., Littleton, CO 80128

Refund requires that you cancel your registration with at least 24 hours notice.