Coaching by Creative Healing Integration, Inc.

MEMO OF UNDERSTANDING

The service that I wish to offer to you is life coaching. Coaching sessions may be in-person, by telephone, by email, or by videoconference. As a life coach, I will work with you to assist you to develop skills to establish and maintain better personal and social relationships, to help you focus on this goal, to improve your self-confidence, to help you communicate more effectively for better relationships, to help you to stop repeating thinking and behavior patterns that limit your success in relationships, and generally to empower you and to encourage your personal fulfillment and self-actualization. I will help you be more focused, attentive, and organized, improve your self-confidence, encourage your spiritual and personal fulfillment and self-actualization, help you communicate more effectively for better relationships at home and work, help you to stop repeating thinking and behavior patterns that limit your success and to empower yourself.

Coaching is not medical, mental health, or any other type of health service. It is not psychotherapy or mental health counseling. No diagnosis, treatment, or advice regarding any medical or mental health condition or illness will be offered. Coaching cannot substitute for and is not an alternative to, medical or other healthcare diagnosis and treatment when a medical or mental health condition or illness is present. You are advised to seek diagnosis, treatment, and advice regarding medical or mental health conditions or illnesses from physicians, psychologists, and other licensed healthcare and mental health professionals.

I hold master's degrees in Social Work and Fine Arts and am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Licensed Art Therapist in the States of NY, NJ, FL, and CA and in my professional practice, I specialize in Complex Trauma. However, the services I wish to offer to you are not medical, psychiatric, psychological, psychotherapy, or any type of healthcare or mental healthcare service. That I have professional licenses does not mean that my coaching services are necessarily superior to the services of an unlicensed life coach. Health insurance companies do not reimburse for life coaching services. If you wish for healthcare or mental health assessment, counseling, or psychotherapy, then I can provide you with referrals at your request.

Please sign below indicating that you understand the nature of the coaching services that I wish to offer you and that you have had the opportunity to ask any questions you might have about them.

_____________________ _______________________ ____________

Name (Print) Signature Date

CREATIVE HEALING INTEGRATION, INC.

COACHING CONTRACT

Welcome to my coaching practice.  This document constitutes a contract between us (the “AGREEMENT”) and you should read it carefully and raise any questions and concerns that you have before you sign it. 

• Group Coaching

Group Coaching for Mari Grande is in the Overcoming the Mother Wound (OCMW) Membership Site.

Group coaching requires having met individually with Mari Grande first or having taken one of Mari’s courses and you are joining her OCMW Membership Site.

Group Coaching requires reading and signing both the Coaching Contract and the Coaching Disclaimer

Group Coaching offers pricing options depending on your needs.

Group Coaching options do not offer cancelations, whether you attend or not your presence counts.

Group Coaching offers support, comradery, and a place to learn and explore. 

• Individual Coaching

The services to be provided by Mari Grande are coaching or online and designed jointly with the client.  The fee for the initial 45-minute assessment of needs is $250 and credit card arrangements will be made before the first meeting. 

Once a plan is agreed upon, coaching sessions will be charged at a rate commensurate to the package purchased.  Fees for coaching sessions must be paid in advance by Credit Card by the first day of the month in which they are provided unless an alternative arrangement is agreed to in writing.   Services not paid for in advance will not be provided. 

Professional time spent outside of coaching sessions, including, but not limited to, between-session phone calls or email exchanges,  reviewing tapes of sessions, report writing, and reading or reviewing documents, will be billed as collateral services on a prorated basis rounded up to the nearest tenth of an hour based on a $300 per hour rate. If I am required to attend meetings outside of my offices, you will pay for all time I spend traveling to the location of such meetings. You must pay for all collateral services within 30 days of billing.  

You are required to give 48 business hours' notice if you need to cancel or change the time of an appointment. Otherwise, you will be charged for the session in full.  Mari Grande agrees that every effort will be made to reschedule sessions that are canceled in a timely manner. 

Coaching & Psychotherapy

In addition to being a coach, I am also a licensed in NY, NJ, FL, CA as a Social Worker with training and experience in diagnosing and treating emotional problems. While there are some similarities between coaching and psychotherapy, they are very different activities and it is important that you understand the differences between them. Psychotherapy is a health care service and is usually reimbursable through health insurance policies.  This is not true for coaching. Both coaching and psychotherapy utilize knowledge of human behavior, motivation and behavioral change, and interactive counseling techniques.  The major differences are in the goals, focus, and level of professional responsibility and that coaching is not reimbursable by health insurers. 

The focus of coaching is development and implementation of strategies to reach client-identified goals of enhanced performance and personal satisfaction.  Coaching may address specific personal projects, life balance, job performance and satisfaction, or general conditions in the client’s life, business, or profession. Coaching utilizes personal strategic planning, values clarification, brainstorming, motivational counseling, and other counseling techniques.

The purposes of psychotherapy are identification, diagnosis, and treatment of mental and nervous disorders. The goals of psychotherapy include alleviating symptoms, understanding the underlying dynamics which create symptoms, changing dysfunctional behaviors which are the result of these disorders, and developing new strategies for successfully coping with the psychological challenges which we all face. Most research on psychotherapy outcomes indicates that the quality of the relationship is most closely correlated with therapeutic progress.  Psychotherapy patients are often emotionally vulnerable. This vulnerability is increased by the expectation that they will discuss very intimate personal data and expose feelings about themselves about which they are understandably sensitive. The past life experiences of psychotherapy patients have often made trust difficult to achieve. These factors give psychotherapists disproportionate power that creates a fiduciary responsibility to protect the safety of their clients and not to harm them.   

The relationship between the coach and client avoids the power differentials that occur in the psychotherapy relationship.  The client sets the agenda and the success of the enterprise depends on the client’s willingness to take risks and try new approaches. The relationship is designed to be more direct and challenging. You can rely on your coach to be honest and straightforward, asking powerful questions and using challenging techniques to move you forward.  You are expected to evaluate progress and when coaching is not working as you wish, you should immediately inform me so we can both take steps to correct the problem. 

Because of these differences, the roles of coach and psychotherapist are often in potential conflict and I believe that, under most circumstances, it is ethically inappropriate for one to play both roles with a client, whether concurrently or sequentially.  Positive change is difficult enough without having to worry about role confusion. This means that if either of us recognizes that you have a problem that would benefit from psychotherapeutic intervention, I will refer you to appropriate resources. In some situations, I may insist that you initiate psychotherapy and may ask that I have access to your psychotherapist in order to effectively continue as your coach. 

It is also important to understand that coaching is a professional relationship. While it may often feel like a close personal relationship, it is not one that can extend beyond professional boundaries both during and after our work together.  Considerable experience shows that when boundaries blur, the benefits gained from the coaching relationship are endangered.

Confidentiality

As a licensed clinical social worker and art therapist or as a coach, I am ethically professionally bound to protect the confidentiality of our communications.  I will only release information about our work to others with your written permission or in response to a court order.  There are some situations in which I am legally obligated to break confidentiality in order to protect you or others from harm. As a professional if I have information that indicates that a child is being abused, I must report that to the appropriate state agency. If a client is an imminent risk to him/herself or makes threats of imminent violence against another, I must take protective actions.  These situations are quite rare in coaching practices. If such a situation occurs in our relationship, I will make every effort to discuss it with you before taking any action.

As you are no doubt aware, it is impossible to protect the confidentiality of information that is transmitted electronically. This is particularly true of e-mail and information stored on computers that are connected to the internet, which do not utilize encryption and other forms of security protection.

Some sessions are conducted in a group format. By signing this agreement, you commit yourself to maintaining the confidentiality of all information communicated to you by other coaching clients and by your coach.  We both understand that progress is often enhanced when clients are allowed to discuss their coaching relationship with trusted colleagues and friends.  You can have these discussions, but you must in no way share information that leads to the identification of others in the group.  If you are ever in doubt regarding what to reveal and what not to reveal, err on the side of protecting the privacy others, a vital and nonnegotiable element of such group interaction. 

• Please Read Coaching Disclaimer (link to CHI Coaching Disclaimer)

ACKNOWLEDGING SIGNATURES 

I have read and understood the terms of this Agreement and have had any questions I had about them answered by _________________. I understand and agree to comply with them.

 ____________________________________________________________________________________ Client’s Name (print) Signature Date 

____________________________________________________________________________________ Signature of Coach Date