When a clinician resigns, the practice's first instinct is HR — paperwork, notice period, replacement search. The second-priority work — clinical handover for every active client they were carrying — usually starts too late. The result is families who learn their therapist has left from a Monday morning email, and covering clinicians inheriting cases without context.
Map the caseload in the first week of notice
On day one of the notice period, sit down with the departing clinician and list every active client. For each: where they are clinically, who is best-positioned to take them on, what the family needs to know. This is a 90-minute conversation. Doing it once at the start beats six panic conversations at the end.
Write a one-page handover per active client
- Current goals and where progress sits.
- Any patterns the new clinician should know — the parent who responds best to text not email, the school the child only attends three days a week.
- The specific things you have tried and they have not worked.
- Anything sensitive — family circumstances, recent disclosures, ongoing safeguarding concerns.
Tell the families directly
An email and a phone call. Name the new clinician. Frame it warmly — 'Sarah is moving to a new role; Tom will be picking up your sessions from week 5'. Families forgive transitions; they do not forgive being left in the dark.
Run a joint session per family
Where the relationship is strong or the case is complex, schedule a transition session with both clinicians present. Twenty minutes — outgoing clinician introduces, incoming clinician asks the questions they want to ask. The family sees the continuity in the room.
Capture what leaves with them
There is institutional knowledge a leaving clinician holds that is not on any client record — referrers they have built rapport with, scheduling patterns that work for tricky suburbs, supplier contacts. In the last week, get them to sit with the practice manager and write it down. Twenty bullet points is plenty.
How Carelyt makes this lighter
Goals on the client record (rather than buried in session notes) mean the incoming clinician sees the live treatment plan immediately. Multi-service rows mean reassigning a single discipline (speech, OT) without disturbing the others. Status fields make it explicit which clients need active hand-off versus which can be paused gracefully.