We hired a facilitator to help us develop and write the guide.

At our first workshop she facilitated a discussion about the case notes we create now. First of all we admitted that we find them really difficult. So we talked about our struggles. To explore these challenges we described what our work entails.

We offer technology coaching that responds to program needs. Not only do different programs need different kinds of supports but the issues they want help with are constantly changing. Our work is further complicated when there is staff turnover, administrative structures don’t support integration of technology or when issues in the broader community affect what is possible within the program.

As we articulated the challenges that complicate our work we realized that we are writing these notes for ourselves. They are a record of what we have done so far, what has worked and what should happen next. Sometimes they are a record of why the coaching has been interrupted: how the program’s needs have changed or why the program needs to wait before they introduce or integrate new technological resources. Case notes allow us to pick up where we left off when the program is ready to resume coaching. For these reasons, our case notes have been notes to ourselves about:

• What we have done and what needs to happen next
• How clients have taken part in coaching activities
• What progress clients are making
• What kinds of coaching has, and has not, worked

But we wanted to think about how our case notes could be useful beyond ourselves. How could they help other members of the staff team? To consider this question we thought about why it could help to share them.

We agreed that case notes for others could:

• Record the number of visits and calls coaching entails, and to keep track of how much time was spent with each client
• Help us remember what we have done, what issues affect the coaching and what needs to happen next
• Document why we offer coaching (the shifts that happen in programs as a result of coaching, high points in the coaching relationship, innovative approaches that inspire us)
• Allow us to reflect on our work (why we took a particular approach, what is going well, what we need to do differently, what we learned from the programs we work with, what we learned about ourselves)
• Share our learnings with each other (how we dealt with specific needs or challenges)

At one of our workshops we explored how we might share this kind of information with each other by trying out different types of writing:

• Journaling
• Free-writing using a starting phrase
• Letters to one another