New Clients

As we begin our work together I’d like to give you information that’s intended to provide a general sense of direction and answer a few logistical questions. If you have questions about any of this, please ask as be begin now or at any point in the future.

Office hours and communicating with each other:
There are three ways to communicate with me out of session, each with their advantages and limitations. First, you may prefer to call and leave a message. My work hours are Tuesday to Friday at noon. If you call after Fri at noon with any questions or about scheduling, I will return your call on Tuesday. If you have an emergency and we don’t have a check-in planned and I cannot be reached please call Community Support Options at 413-586-5555 and speak to a crisis worker. If you have a question about what constitutes an emergency we can talk about that.

Secondly, you may choose to email. Please know that I do not return messages through email but you are welcome to send a message. We can talk about this as well.

Finally, we may text to communicate about scheduling changes or last minute cancellations either by me or by you. Weather related changes are also a time we may be texting to reschedule.

Time away:
I typically take several weeks off for training and vacation through the year. To the best of my ability I will give you advance notice of when I will be out of the office. There are rare times when I do not have the ability to give much notice, such as being ill, and you will receive a text from me to cancel/reschedule usually the night before or the morning of our scheduled appointment. If I do need to cancel and we are not able to reschedule to another time in the week, you may expect to meet at our next routinely scheduled appointment time. If you cancel and we are not able to reschedule to another time in the same week you can expect to meet at our next routinely scheduled appointment time. If you cancel with less than 24 hours notice (on Friday for Monday clients) you can expect to pay $35 for the first, $75 for the second and your full fee for any others regardless of the reason. And of course, the more notice you can give, the better.

Therapy endings:
There are many reasons that therapy may end such as completion of your desired goals, graduations, moving away, etc... feelings and needs that may only surface while ending can be very rich and I ask that we hold that process together, giving at least 3 weeks for that to unfold.

There are other logistical questions you may have which are not addressed here. You are invited to bring any questions in and we will discuss them fully.

I look forward to working with you and thank you for allowing me to join you on this part of your journey.
Anne

Anne Parente, LICSW, SEP
31 Trumbull Rd., Suite 206
Northampton, MA 01060
413-887-8847