All placements must come to an end.
After weeks of working closely with a client, who
wouldn’t wonder - what happened to my client who I saw daily for therapy? What
happened to my client who became tearful when they spoke about their fears? What
happened to that equipment funding request I helped write? Your student’s genuine curiosity and concern could be endless but cannot be appeased as
we must abide by strict legislation to protect personal information.
As
a therapist, you have faced a variety of similar experiences where the end to a
therapeutic, client relationship felt unfinished. Modelling ways to gain
closure will support your student’s ability to cope as a clinician later.
So
how can you, as fieldwork educators, facilitate a sense of closure for your student
during placement?
Here
are a few suggestions:
· Remind your student to tell clients of their eventual departure with a specific end date to establish boundaries,
· Protect time at the end of placement for your student to individually say goodbye to clients and suggest sharing:
§ Something they have learned from the client,
§ Ways in which the client helped shape their
professional growth,
§ How they have appreciated their work together,
§ Strict boundaries regarding communication moving
forward,
§ How you, as the therapist, have been updated on what was being worked on and will continue to provide services.
· Allow time to close your own student-educator relationship during the final evaluation as you would for a client (above),
· Consider being open and honest about your own feelings and strategies you use to cope with lack of closure or difficult goodbyes as they occur in real-time during placement.
Goodbyes are hard but it is a hard we need to learn to cope with as therapists as one goodbye makes room for a hello with a new client. And if that’s not encouraging enough, remind your student of the timeless wisdom of Dr. Seuss - “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
Julie
NB: 'client' is being used to symbolize individual persons, patients/residents, caregivers/support systems, and communities.
