Counselling treatment plan

Mental Health Treatment Plans: Templates, Goals & Objectives

Planning – some of us love it, some of us hate it, and some of us just don’t have any idea how to do it!

Part of effective mental health treatment is the development of a treatment plan.

A good mental health professional will work collaboratively with the client to construct a treatment plan that has achievable goals that provide the best chances of treatment success.

Read on to learn more about mental health treatment plans, how they are constructed, and how they can help.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free. These science-based exercises will explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains:

What is a Treatment Plan? A Definition
Goals and Objectives of a Treatment Plan
How to Create a Treatment Plan
Technologies to Support Mental Health Treatment Plans (Incl. Quenza)
Examples of Mental Health Treatment Plans
A Treatment Plan Template
A Take-Home Message
References

What is a Treatment Plan? A Definition

At the most basic level, a mental health treatment plan is simply a set of written instructions and records relating to the treatment of an ailment or illness. A treatment plan will include the patient or client’s personal information, the diagnosis (or diagnoses, as is often the case with mental illness), a general outline of the treatment prescribed, and space to measure outcomes as the client progresses through treatment.

A treatment plan does many things, the most important of which include (Leahy, Holland, & McGinn, 2011; PHN, 2017):

Defining the problem or ailment
Describing the treatment prescribed by the health/mental health professional
Setting a timeline for treatment progress (whether it’s a vague timeline or includes specific milestones)
Identifying the major treatment goals
Noting important milestones and objectives

This documentation of the most important components of treatment helps the therapist and client stay on the same page, provides an opportunity for discussion of the treatment as planned, and can act as a reminder and motivational tool.

A wide range of people can benefit from mental health treatment plans, including:

People living with a serious mental illness
People experiencing distress in one or more areas of life
Children, parents, and/or families
The elderly
Individuals
Couples
People with developmental disabilities
People experiencing sexual or gender identity issues
People being bullied and/or abused
Bullies and/or abusers
People in the criminal justice system
Employers and/or employees (Croft, 2015).

While people in similar circumstances with similar issues may have similar treatment plans, it’s important to understand that each treatment plan is unique.

There are often many different ways to treat the same problem – sometimes there are dozens of different paths that treatment could take!

No two treatment plans will be exactly the same, because no two people’s experiences are exactly the same.

What, Exactly, is in a Treatment Plan?

While the basic components of a mental health treatment plan are listed above, there are many more possible additions to a treatment plan.

As noted earlier, all treatment plans are different – they are unique products of the discussions between a therapist and client, the therapist’s clinical knowledge, and the client’s shared experience.

Even in identical diagnoses in similar individuals, differences are bound to manifest in any or all of the following components:

History and Demographics – client’s psychosocial history, history of the symptoms, any past treatment information.
Assessment/Diagnosis – the therapist or clinician’s diagnosis of the client’s mental health issues, and any past diagnoses will also be noted.
Presenting Concerns – the problems or symptoms that initially brought the client in.
Treatment Contract – the contract between the therapist and client that summarizes the goals of treatment.
Responsibility – a section on who is responsible for which components of treatment (client will be responsible for many, the therapist for others).
Strengths – the strengths and resources the client brings to treatment (can include family support, character strengths, material support, etc.).
Treatment Goals – the “building blocks” of the plan, which should be specific, realistic, customized for the client, and measurable.
Objectives – goals are the larger, more broad outcomes the therapist and client are working for, while multiple objectives make up each goal; they are small, achievable steps that make up a goal.
Modality, Frequency, and Targets – different modalities are often applied to different goals, requiring a plan that pairs modalities, a frequency of sessions, anticipated completion date, etc., with the respective goal.
Interventions – the techniques, exercises, interventions, etc., that will be applied in order to work toward each goal.
Progress/Outcomes – a good treatment plan must include space for tracking progress towards objectives and goals (Hansen, 1996)

The therapist and client will work together to get this information down on paper, with the therapist contributing his or her expertise in treatments and treatment outcomes, and the client contributing expertise in his or her own life and experiences.

Why Use a Treatment Plan?

Besides the obvious benefits that planning usually brings, there are a few specific advantages that mental health treatment plans impart to those who use them.

These benefits include:

Treatment plans provide a guide to treatment for both the therapist and client.
Treatment plans can reduce the risk of fraud, waste, abuse, and the potential to cause unintentional harm to clients.
Treatment plans facilitate easy and effective billing since all services rendered are documented.
Treatment plans can help smooth any potential bumps in treatment, especially if a client requires a kind of treatment the primary therapist cannot provide (e. g., a certain type of intervention or a prescription for medication) or must see a new therapist for some other reason (e.g., if the client or therapist has moved, or the therapist is on extended leave, PHN, 2017).

While treatment plans are quite popular in mental health treatment, it should be noted that not every therapist or clinician will use one. Treatment plans are not necessarily required to give or receive successful treatment, but they can be extremely helpful in facilitating a smooth and hassle-free treatment experience.

Goals and Objectives of a Treatment Plan

Goals and objectives will vary tremendously from one person to the next, especially those facing very different problems.

If you or your client is committed to change but isn’t quite sure where to begin, this link of potential goals can spark a useful discussion about where to go from here.

Goals are the broadest category of achievement that clients in mental health counseling work towards. For instance, a common goal for those struggling with substance abuse may be to quit using their drug of choice or alcohol, while a patient struggling with depression may set a goal to reduce their suicidal thoughts.

In general, these goals should be realistic – they should be reasonable, given the client’s general experience and hopes for the future.

Objectives are basically goals broken into smaller pieces – many similar or subsequent objectives will make up a goal.

For example, an objective for an individual with extreme anxiety may be to take 10 steps outside their front door. The next objective may be to make it to the neighborhood market, or up to 30 steps outside their front door.

Meeting each objective will eventually lead you to meet the goal.

How to Create a Treatment Plan

There are many resources out there on how to create a mental health treatment plan – there’s even a WikiHow page on the subject!

This checklist is an especially good resource for treatment planning, due in part to how brief and to-the-point it is. The checklist breaks down treatment plans into five sections: Problem Statements, Goals, Objectives, Interventions, and General Checklist.

The checklist items are presented by section as follows:

Problem Statements

Do problem statements reflect the six problem domains?
1 – Medical status
2 – Employment and support
3 – Drug/Alcohol use
4 – Legal status
5 – Family/Social status
6 – Psychiatric status
Are problem statements written in behavioral terms?
Are problem statements written in a non-judgmental and jargon-free manner?
Are problem statements based on priority needs?

What does the client want to achieve during treatment?

Do goals address the problem statements?
Are the goals attainable during the active treatment phase?
Would the client be able to understand the goals as written?
Would both the client and the treatment program find these goals acceptable?
Has the client’s stage of readiness to change been considered in the goal statements?

Objectives

What will the client say or do? Under what circumstances? How often will he/she say or do this?

Do objectives address the goals?
Are the goals SMART?
o Specific – Are specific activities included? Could the client understand what is expected?
o Measurable – Can change or progress toward meeting the objectives be documented/evaluated?
o Attainable – Can the client take steps toward meeting the objectives?
o Realistic – Can the client meet the objectives given their current situation?
o Time-Limited/Timely – Is the time frame specified for the objectives?
Has the client’s stage of readiness to change been considered in the objectives?

Interventions

What will the counselor/staff do to assist the client? Under what circumstances?

Do interventions address the objectives?
Are the interventions SMART (Locke & Latham, 1990)?
o Specific – Are specific staff persons responsible for assisting client/providing service?
o Measurable – Will the counselor/treatment program be held accountable for the services?
o Attainable – Do interventions reflect the level of care available or are outside referrals used when needed?
o Realistic – Do the interventions reflect the level of functioning or functional impairment of the client?
o Time-Limited/Timely – Is the time frame specified for the interventions?
Has the client’s stage of readiness to change been considered in the interventions (Rollnick, Heather, Gold, & Hall, 1992)?

General Checklist

Is this treatment plan individualized to fit the client based on their unique abilities, goals, lifestyle, socio-economic status (SES), work history, educational background, and culture?
Are the client’s strengths incorporated into the treatment plan?
Has the client (and significant others) participated in developing this treatment plan?
Is the plan dated and signed by all who participated in developing this treatment plan?

Not every treatment plan will call for each of these items. This is fine since every treatment plan is as individual as the client treated, but it should be noted why the item does not apply.

When each item is “checked” off the list (or addressed in writing if it is not applicable), the treatment plan is likely a good one – or, at least, it has the basics of a good treatment plan!

If you work with children and would like some tips on preparing a good treatment plan for a young client, check out the Pennsylvania CASSP Training and Technical Assistance Institute’s publication on this subject here.

Technologies to Support Mental Health Treatment Plans (Incl. Quenza)

At face value, executing all the components of a mental health treatment plan may seem like a lot to address in a series of fifty-minute therapy sessions.

However, therapists are increasingly leveraging the benefits of technology in creative ways to help develop, execute, and evaluate mental health treatment plans using a blended care approach.

Blended care involves the provision of psychological services using telecommunication technologies.

Among these technologies are many digital platforms that therapists can use to supplement real-time therapy sessions to help accomplish the steps included in mental health treatment plans.

For example, using a blended care platform such as Quenza, a therapist may carry out some of the initial steps in the assessment/diagnosis phase of a treatment plan, such as by inviting the client to complete a digital diagnostic questionnaire.

Likewise, the plan may incorporate various psychoeducational interventions which can be delivered digitally, such as guided meditations, reflection exercises, or self-paced learning modules.

A therapist may even use these tools following the conclusion of a client’s in-person treatment as part of a follow-up, such as to assess whether a client has remained psychologically well a few months down the line or requires additional support.

These are just a few ideas for how you might use a blended care tool such as Quenza to help carry out some steps in a mental health treatment plan.

Examples of Mental Health Treatment Plans

There are several examples of mental health treatment plans to be found online, and several are linked below:

This sample treatment plan is for a young Medicaid recipient struggling with symptoms of depression and suicidal thoughts.

This treatment plan is written for the treatment of a man suffering from schizoaffective disorder who is experiencing side effects from his medication.

If you’d like to see more, this website has a ton of useful example treatment plans and templates.

A Treatment Plan Template

As noted earlier, one template will not cover all of the possibilities for a client’s treatment plan, but this template can at least provide a starting point.

Feel free to rearrange, remove, and add as needed, but make sure to properly cite the source if you use it for profit or publish it somewhere (source information is at the bottom of the template).

A Take-Home Message

In this article, we’ve discussed the purpose and general description of a mental health treatment plan.

We hope you have a better idea of how treatment plans work, why therapists use them, and how they can help individuals struggling with mental health problems.

Have you ever created a mental health treatment plan? Have you ever had a mental health treatment plan created for you? Let us know in the comments!

As always, thank you for reading!

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free.

Croft, H. (2015). What is a mental health treatment plan? Why is it important? GoodTherapy. Retrieved from https://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/mental-illness-overview/what-is-a-mental-health-treatment-plan-why-is-it-important/
Hansen, M. (1996). Writing effective treatment plans: The Pennsylvania CASSP model. Retrieved from http://www.ccbh.com/pdfs/Providers/healthchoices/articles/TreatmentPlans.pdf
Leahy, R. L., Holland, S. J., & McGinn, L. K. (2011). Treatment plans and interventions for depression and anxiety disorders. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Locke, E. A. & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting and task performance. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
PHN. (2017). Mental health treatment plans: A guide for health professionals working in general or private practice. Retrieved from https://www.nwmh.org.au/sites/default/files/2017-06/Mental%20Health%20Treatment%20Plans%20North%20Western%20Melbourne%20PHN.pdf
Rollnick, S., Heather, N., Gold, R., & Hall, W. (1992). Development of a short ‘readiness to change’ questionnaire for use in brief, opportunistic interventions among excessive drinkers. British Journal of Addiction, 87(5), 743-754.

Elements of a Clear Counseling Treatment Plan – My Clients Plus

It’s difficult to have confidence that you’ll arrive at your destination without a map or directions. For therapists and their clients, a counseling treatment plan outlines a clear path for you to follow as you move through the hills and valleys of progress. It’s a roadmap that lays out waypoints to your destination, making it easier to recognize progress and when you need to change direction. In this post, we’ll explain the purpose of a counseling treatment plan and explore the components that go into creating an effective one. We’ll wrap things up with a lineup of tips for improving your treatment plans.

What is a Counseling Treatment Plan?

A counseling treatment plan is a document that you create in collaboration with a client. It includes important details like the client’s history, presenting problems, a list of treatment goals and objectives, and what interventions you’ll use to help the client progress. A counseling treatment plan defines what success looks like and spells out how to get there. It helps keep you organized and provides the client with an objective, easy-to-follow method of tracking their progress. For private insurers and MCOs, a counseling treatment plan can be an objective way to review what’s being done with a client and why. Many insurers require that a treatment plan be created and reviewed periodically.

Ingredients of an Effective Counseling Treatment Plan

Although there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creating a treatment plan, there are several key components that make up an effective plan. These components will allow you to create an accessible, easy-to-use document with all the information you, your client, and the insurer will need.

1. Client History, Background, and Assessments

This section contains basic demographic information about the client, past and present diagnosis, and when the presenting problems first started to occur. If the client has seen a counselor or other mental health professional in the past, you’ll describe their prior treatment history. The results of any formal assessments should go in this section too.

2. Problem Statements

List in detail what presenting problems led your client to seek care. What questions or symptoms were they experiencing that drove them to seek professional help?

3.

Strengths

The client strengths section is an essential but sometimes-overlooked element of a counseling treatment plan. Here, you’ll list the client’s self-stated personal strengths and available family supports. When the going gets tough, reviewing this information with the client can help give them encouragement.

4. Treatment Contract

A treatment contract details who’s responsible for what. It lists out actions that both parties are responsible for completing during treatment. The contract summarizes the client’s goals for counseling and the plan for achieving them. While not absolutely necessary, including a treatment contract can help create a sense of ownership for the client.

5. Goals

Treatment goals form the bedrock of any treatment plan. They define success. Goals should be realistic, concrete, and tailored to meet the unique needs of the client.

6. Objectives

If a goal is a story, objectives are the individual chapters within that story. Treatment objectives are small, incremental steps that together will result in the achievement of a treatment goal.

7. Interventions

Counselors use various techniques, interventions, and other strategies to help their clients meet their treatment goals. The interventions section is where you list the methods you plan to use with the client.

8. Progress

Documenting client progress is one of the most important aspects of a counseling treatment plan. As treatment progresses, being able to look back on past successes is a significant source of inspiration to stay the course. Insurers also require documentation of client progress.

Check out Tips for Writing Mental Health SOAP Notes for a helpful framework to guide your progress notes.

Tips for Creating Better Counseling Treatment Plans

A treatment plan can be a truly valuable guide if you put intention into it. Here are three tips for making your counseling treatment plans more effective.

1. Let Your Client Guide You

Leverage your client’s insights and knowledge of their issues heavily as you work together on creating a treatment plan. Let them take the lead in areas like defining the presenting problems, listing their strengths, and goal-setting.

2. Use SMART Goals

Goals are the foundation of the counseling treatment plan. It’s what all the following components rest on. The SMART framework for goal-setting can keep you focused on writing goals that are likely to be achieved. The SMART acronym is below.

S- Specific

M- Measurable

A- Achievable

R – Relevant

T -Time-bound

3. Remember, It’s Designed to Be Flexible

Life rarely unfolds as we expect them to. That’s why counseling treatment plans are meant to be adjusted as treatment progresses. If things are moving more slowly than anticipated or secondary issues arise that deserve their own goals and objectives, don’t be afraid to sit down with your client and revise the treatment plan.

The Value of a Treatment Plan

For clients seeking your help, the path to an improved sense of well-being is littered with obstacles. A good counseling treatment plan identifies those obstacles and shows what the course forward looks like. It clearly charts out the final destination, how to get there, and important waypoints to look out for along the way. A treatment plan can be a source of encouragement to your client as well as a map to guide your treatment.

Free consultation and preparation of a treatment plan

What is it?

Any treatment of diseases of the teeth and oral cavity must begin with a consultation with a professional dentist. Vegastom dentistry has all the necessary advanced equipment, as well as experienced specialists who can diagnose and draw up a treatment plan in any situation. The process of consultation and diagnostics is built as conveniently and efficiently as possible for the patient.

When should I seek advice?

The state of the oral cavity is in many ways an indicator of the state of a person's overall health. Therefore, if at least one of the following problems occurs, it is absolutely not worth postponing a visit to the doctor:

toothache;
bad breath;
bleeding gums;
pain when chewing coarse food;
pain when eating cold and/or hot food;
dark plaque on the teeth.

How is the consultation?

As part of the provision of this service, Kakhovka dentistry specialists will draw up an individual treatment plan for you, indicating the necessary procedures, terms and costs. You can also get detailed information about the current state of your teeth and oral cavity. Our experts will select the best technology and treatment method for you. In addition, Vegastom Dentistry will advise you on how best to carry out oral hygiene, how to choose individual hygiene products and answer all your questions. At the Vegastom Clinic, consultation and treatment planning is a free procedure.

Free consultation of a dentist and drawing up a treatment plan at Novye Cheryomushki metro station, South-West Administrative District

Prevention

If treatment is not required, the dentist gives the patient recommendations regarding oral care. In particular, Vegastom experts will recommend suitable toothbrushes, pastes and other hygiene products, taking into account the individual anatomical features of the oral cavity. To prescribe the most effective treatment for the patient, the specialists of the clinic can prescribe an orthopantomogram.

Our doctors

Example of work

Ultraniers for 4 central teeth were made (without grinding teeth)

6 crowns were made of metal-free ceramic (IPS e.max pressed ceramic)

2 crowns of metal-free ceramic and 2 core inlays were made ( zirconia ceramic ZrO)

Gold alloy cast core inlays and 4 zirconia crowns ZrO

Contact

To make an appointment for nylon dental prosthetics, just call the Vegastom dental clinic at: +7 (495) 331-66-11 or you can come to the address: Moscow, Kakhovka street, building 1 (metro: New Cheryomushki, Kaluzhskaya , Sevastopol, Kakhovskaya). If you need any other information about the clinic, you can write to the mail: info@vegastom. ru.
We work daily, from 10:00 to 21:00!

Treatment plan consultation | dentistry in Moscow

Consultation with treatment plan

Preparation of a step-by-step treatment plan in a dental clinic

What is a treatment plan?

This is a document that includes a list of medical procedures performed sequentially in accordance with the indications, taking into account the patient's history and tasks. The treatment plan is drawn up by the attending physician after the diagnosis (examination, photo protocol and panoramic image of the OPTG).

Prescribing treatment plan

The existence of a plan allows medical manipulations to be performed step by step by doctors of various specializations. Depending on the indications, these may be general dentists, hygienists, surgeons, implantologists, orthodontists and orthopedists, as well as laboratory technicians.

CONTENT OF THE TREATMENT PLAN

Diagnosis and description of the current state of the oral cavity

List of necessary procedures, taking into account an interdisciplinary approach

The cost of the indicated medical procedures

The frequency of visits to the clinic and the duration of treatment

The treatment plan is checked by the head physician of the dental clinic and is a legal document that is attached to the patient's card.

DOCTOR'S ADVICE

Goncharov Andrey Anatolyevich

Head doctor of the Oliva Dent clinic

Having a treatment plan is the basis of an integrated approach. From a medical point of view, this allows you to follow the order of treatment, which ensures maximum quality and effectiveness.

On the one hand, the plan allows you to create a team work order for various specialists in the dental clinic. On the other hand, it is a document in which we explain in detail to the patient the upcoming volume and argue the sequence of manipulations.

In addition, having a treatment plan ensures that there are no hidden fees.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

01 Is it possible to draw up a treatment plan without diagnostics?

No, it's not possible. To plan future treatment, it is necessary to conduct a visual examination and examine the oral cavity for hidden conditions using a panoramic OPTG image.

Learn more