Templates
Session notes template
A brief, defensible structure for session notes, with what to leave out.
Last updated: July 2026
Session notes should be brief, factual and useful: enough that you could pick up the thread next week, account for your decisions if you ever needed to, and no more. Clients can request their notes, courts can order them, and anything you write may one day be read by someone else. Write with that reader in mind.
How to use it: one entry per session, kept separately from the client's contact details and identified by initials or a client code rather than a full name.
Session record
- Client code/initials: [ ] Session number: [ ]
- Date: [ ] Format: In person / Online / Phone
- Attended: Yes / Late / Cancelled / DNA
Themes brought (brief, factual)
[Two or three lines on what the client brought and worked on.]
Process (what happened in the work, not a transcript)
[One or two lines: interventions used, how the work developed.]
Risk (only if discussed or observed; otherwise write "none noted")
[What was said or observed, what you asked, what was agreed. Factual, no speculation.]
Actions / plan
[Anything agreed for next time, referrals discussed, letters to write.]
For supervision (optional)
[Anything you want to take to supervision.]
Signed/initialled: [ ] Written on: [date, ideally same day]
What not to write
Keep out verbatim quotes unless they matter clinically, your own unprocessed opinions of the client, third parties' full names where initials will do, and speculation stated as fact. Write "client reported..." rather than presenting a client's account as established truth. Never alter a note after the fact: if you need to correct something, add a dated addendum. Notes written the same day, in the same brief format, every time, are the ones that hold up.
How long to keep them, how to store them and how access requests work are covered in our keeping notes guide and the privacy notice generator.
This is a template to adapt, not legal advice. Please have important wording reviewed by a suitably qualified person before you rely on it.