Grievance Policy:  

Presence Psychotherapy.org is fully committed to conducting all activities in strict conformance with the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and the National Association of Social Work’s Standard of Ethics. Presence Psychotherapy will comply with all legal and ethical responsibilities to be non-discriminatory in promotional activities, program content and in the treatment of program participants. The monitoring and assessment of compliance with these standards will be the responsibility of the Education Committee in consultation with all members of the continuing education committee including Dr. Taylor, the Ethics Chairperson.

While Presence Psychotherapy goes to great lengths to assure fair treatment for all participants and attempts to anticipate problems, there will be occasional issues which come to the attention of the convention staff which require intervention and/or action on the part of the convention staff or an officer of [name of organization]. This procedural description serves as a guideline for handling such grievances.

1. When a participant, either orally or in written format, files a grievance and expects action on the complaint, the following actions will be taken.
If the grievance concerns a speaker, the content presented by the speaker, or the style of presentation, the individual filing the grievance will be asked to put his/her comments in written format. The Ethics Chair will then pass on the comments to the speaker, assuring the confidentiality of the grieved individual.

2. If the grievance concerns a workshop offering, its content, level of presentation, or the facilities in which the workshop was offered, the convention chair will mediate and will be the final arbitrator. If the participant requests action, the convention chair will:

a) attempt to move the participant to another workshop or
b) provide a credit for a subsequent year’s workshop or
c) provide a partial or full refund of the workshop fee.

Actions 2b and 2c will require a written note, documenting the grievance, for record keeping purposes. The note need not be signed by the grieved individual.

3. If the grievance concerns Presence Psychotherapy CE program, in a specific regard, the CE Chair will attempt to arbitrate

If an attendee has a grievance, please put grievance in writing and submit to Michelle Lepak, LCSW, Michelle@presencepsychothrapy.org or Danille Taylor, Danielle@presensepsychotherapy.org as soon as possible. Grievances will be responded to with 24 hours. Grievances will be heard and attempts will be made to resolve the grievance. Grievances would receive, to the best of our ability, corrective action in order to prevent further problems.

Contact name(s)*:  Michelle Lepak, LCSW; Daneille Taylor, PsyD
Email(s): Michellel@presencepsychotherapy.org or Danielle@presencepsychotherapy.org.
Telephone number(s):  973-746-2047
Address:   Presence Psychotherapy Attn: Michelle Lepak LCSW 103 Park St.  Montclair NJ 07042