 Today, we are going to talk about the guidelines for record keeping. Record keeping is one of a very essential and important process in therapy because if we are not going to keep the record of everything, it is just going to create trouble for us. APA provides guidelines designed to educate psychologists and provide a framework for making decisions regarding professional record keeping. This record keeping is not just a simple paper pencil record keeping but it has certain professional ways which are being used and designed by APA and it needs to be fulfilled by the therapist. Psychologists should be familiar with legal and ethical requirements for record keeping in their specific professional context and in their specific adjudication because the rules are being used everywhere and we have to give them data in some ethical ways to provide the data to our clients. We just have to ensure their confidentiality without randomly giving their names, numbers and details. So how we are going to keep the record and how we are going to give it to other people, this is being educated by APA that how we are going to do this process. Records benefits both the client and the psychologist through documentation of a treatment and plans, service provided and the client's progress. We can have the baseline data, we can have the data during the progress and we can add the final data and we can compare it to where we started and where we are standing now. The nature and the extent of the record will vary depending upon the purpose, setting and context of psychological services. Now how do we keep the record? It depends on the psychological service we are giving. Sometimes we need to probably have a video record of everything which we have done. Sometimes we need to keep the numbers with us. Sometimes we need to keep something else. So it depends on what treatment we are taking and how we are going to keep the record. The record of psychological services may include information of three kinds. If we describe it in broader categories, then there are three types of information that we have to take. Information in the client's life, this is very simple to understand that identifying data, that is name which is being provided by the Codal ID, contact information, phone number, addresses, fees and billing information which is going to pay for the therapy, guardianship status where appropriate or parents where they work, the number of the family members in the house and things like that. Documentation of informed consent or its details which is the ascent of the treatment, whether you have taken its permission or not. Documentation of waiver of confidentiality and authorization. These are the topics we have read in detail. But we are just looking at the application that we need to have these papers. Then presenting complaints and diagnosis record is important. Plan for service which you made initial, then modified and implemented. Health and developmental history should be there. There should be no allergies, how were the milestones and things like that. And consent for release of information, in which situations which confidential information of the client can be revealed to which authority. Even this could be documented. For each substantive contact with a client, date of service and duration of a session, how many times you meet, how many sessions of your therapy and how much duration that need to be recited. Because all these things should be there. In any situation when there is a problem or issue, then you should have this record there. Type of service, consultation, assessment, treatment and training, whatever is being given to the client. Nature of professional intervention and contact. For example, what were the treatment modalities following? Was there a referral or not? Did the psychologist refer to a psychiatrist or not? Was there any medication advice or not? Former or informal assessment of client status? Not exactly, but we still know the formal or informal status. We tell that assessment in the beginning. Gradually it develops. Because when the client comes for the first time, at times he has seen a therapist and has some assessment records. The recording, including other specific information, is client responses or reactions to professional intervention. That is, what is the response of your therapy? Current risk factor in relation to the danger of self and others. Is that a harmful client? Other treatment modalities employed such as medication, whether it is a previous record or current, and emergency intervention. For example, special sessions and hospitalization if they have been in the past or if they are expected to be in future. So, they need to be documented and in record. Then plans for future intervention. What interventions are you going to do? What kind of treatment interventions are you going to give in the future? Information describing the qualitative aspect of professional client interaction. That is, your interaction with him, your rapport building, your understanding with him, you have to give a qualitative expression of how you feel. Then prognosis which is being expected by the therapist towards the client. And then assessment or summary data, that is psychological testing, structured interview, all these things need to be recorded and recorded. And then consultation with or referrals to other professionals. And if they have been consulted with, and in the future what kind of consultation you can recommend, they can understand. So, all these three kinds of the information must be documented and they should be kept into the record. Because this is very important that in any case, they may be asked by probably court, by the law, maybe the guardians or the parents, or anywhere else. Especially in those situations where any problem occurs. So, it is very important to have the record or properly record filing is an ethical responsibility of the therapist.