How to choose a trusted contact, and what to ask them first

The hardest part of writing a contingency plan is not the writing. It is asking someone to be in it. Clinicians put this off for months, usually because they are imagining a much bigger ask than the one they need to make.

So here is the actual ask, and how to have it in about five minutes.

What you are asking them to do

One thing: to confirm, if it comes to it, that they cannot reach you, and to press a button that starts a plan you already wrote.

That is the whole role. They are not managing your practice. They are not making clinical decisions. They are not taking on your clients. They are the person who can say "yes, something is wrong" so that a set of messages you composed yourself can go out.

What they can never do
See your client list. Read notes or session detail. Look at allocations or income. There should be no screen anywhere that would show them, which makes the ask smaller and the answer easier.

Who to ask

In rough order of how well it tends to work:

A clinical colleague you already debrief with. They understand why it matters and are unlikely to panic.
A supervisor. Same, with the advantage that the relationship is already formal.
A partner or family member. Fine, provided they are reachable and comfortable acting without you.

The one combination to avoid is someone who is both emotionally very close to you and likely to be dealing with the same emergency you are. If you are in a car together, they are not your contingency.

The conversation

It really is this short.

I'm setting up a plan in case I'm ever unwell or unreachable and can't run my practice for a stretch. If that happened, would you be willing to be the person who confirms it and starts the plan? It doesn't give you access to anything clinical. You'd just be confirming you can't reach me. The messages my clients get are ones I've already written.

Then three follow-ups worth covering while you have them:

How would I reach you? Get a phone number and an email that is not the one you use for work.
What if you're away? It is worth naming a second person, even informally.
Would you want to see it? Some people say yes and feel much better for it. Show them the printed page.

Then rehearse it in front of them

The thing that turns a nervous yes into a settled one is watching a dry run. Run the plan as a rehearsal, show them the list of people who would be contacted and the wording each would receive, and let them see that nothing was sent.

It reframes the whole thing. They are not agreeing to an unknown responsibility, they are agreeing to press a button on a process they have now seen end to end.

Write down where the plan lives

Last step, and the one people skip: tell them where the printed copy is. With your will, in the filing cabinet, wherever. A plan that only exists behind a login is a plan that fails in exactly the circumstances it was written for.

One trusted contact, no clinical access
Nominate someone, write the notices in your own words, and rehearse the whole thing before you ever need it.
See how it works →