Keeping notes: what to record and how to store it

Notes are one of those things that feel optional until the moment you need them, at which point they matter a great deal. Good record-keeping supports the work, meets your professional and legal obligations, and protects you if a question is ever raised about a piece of practice. It doesn’t need to be onerous. It needs to be consistent, proportionate and secure.

What to record

Aim for enough, not everything. Useful notes usually capture the practical facts of the work, the key themes and any significant developments, decisions you made and why, and anything relevant to risk or safeguarding. They’re a professional record, not a transcript, and not a place for stray opinion. A helpful test is to ask whether what you’ve written would make sense, and read fairly, if the client themselves asked to see it, because under data protection law they can.

How much is proportionate

Records should be adequate for their purpose and no more. Over-detailed notes create their own risks and take time you don’t have; too-thin notes fail you when you need them. Find a proportionate middle, keep it consistent across clients, and write them up promptly while the session is fresh rather than reconstructing later.

Storing them securely

However you keep records, they must be held securely, because they contain sensitive personal information. Paper notes need a locked, private place others can’t access. Digital notes need to be protected appropriately, on secure systems rather than loose files on a shared device. Keep the identifying details and the content sensibly separated where you can, and make sure nobody in your home or workspace can stumble across them.

How long to keep them

Records shouldn’t be kept forever, nor destroyed too soon, and there is no single fixed retention period that applies to every counsellor. How long you keep records depends on applicable law, your contract terms, your insurer’s expectations and the nature of the work, so set a clear, defensible retention policy of your own and follow it consistently rather than guessing case by case. Check your professional body’s guidance, your insurer’s requirements and any legal obligations that apply to you, and build the review and secure destruction of old records into your routine.

Make it a habit

The counsellors who find notes a burden are usually the ones who leave them. Written up promptly, kept proportionate, stored securely and reviewed on a schedule, record-keeping becomes a quiet background discipline rather than a source of stress. Decide your system once, and then just keep it.