A picture is worth a thousand words...

This is nothing revolutionary, but a good tech tip nonetheless. At the private practice I have worked in for some years, we do a lot of email communication and updates to parents. As one can imagine, writing an email update on the activities in a session can be very time consuming. Recently, I sought to cut down that (essentially unpaid) time I was spending, and also to make my updates more useful to parents and clients by adding more visual content. Attaching or inserting a picture cuts down on amount of text I need to type to explain the activity, and has the added bonus of being a visual that can result in a helpful conversation between the parent and client after the session. I ask parents to show the picture to their child and prompt him/her to explain what happened in the session.

At first, I planned to bring my digital camera to each session to facilitate this plan, but then chided myself, "Helloooo, you always have an iPhone with you!" The quality is adequate, and I don't need to remember to charge the darn camera, remember to bring the camera itself, or deal with a cord or iPhoto. I simply forward the message to my own email, download the file, and insert it into a parent email from there. Overall, I have recieved good feedback from parents, and perhaps saved myself from a painful typing injury.

Here's an example of a good update photo, illustrating a lesson on whole-body listening. Thanks Amanda Citrin and the kiddos in her group for creating this poster: