Grievance Policy:
Presence Psychotherapy Institute 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 Continuing Education Committee in consultation with all members of the committee: Michelle Lepak, LCSW, executive director; Gregory Carson, LCSW, the Social Work Consultant for the Presence Psychotherapy Training course and Joanne Cohen-Katz, PhD., Psychologist Ethics chairperson.
While Presence Psychotherapy Institute 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 staff or an officer of Presence Psychotherapy Training. This procedural description serves as a guideline for handling such grievances that relate to refund requests, complaints about course content, speakers, facilities, nonreceipt of certificates, and other miscellaneous occurrences.
When a participant, either orally or in written format, files a grievance and expects action on the complaint, the following actions will be taken.
1. 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 to the Ethics Chair and Social Work Consultant who 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 CE committee chair Michelle Lepak, LCSW, Executive director, Social work Consultant Gregory Carson, LCSW and Ethics Chair, Dr. Cohen-Katz, 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 a Presence Psychotherapy CE program, in a specific regard, the CE committee will attempt to arbitrate.
Grievances will be responded to within 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.
If an attendee has a grievance, please put grievance in writing and submit to any of the contacts below.
Committee Contact information:
Executive Director: Michelle Lepak, LCSW
Michelle@presencepsychotherapy.org
Social Work Consultant: Gregory Carson, LCSW
gregorycarson.lcsw@gmail.com
Psychologist Ethics Chair: Joanne Cohen-Katz, PhD.
joannecohenkatz@gmail.com
Telephone number(s): 973-746-2047
Address: Presence Psychotherapy Institute 103 Park St. Montclair NJ 07042
Presence Psychotherapy Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7994. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Presence Psychotherapy Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.