Finishing on time

So it's time for you to wrap things up! This can be one of the hardest parts of a session with a Lively member! They might be on for a chat, and sometimes it's hard to get away. This section will set you up to carefully and skilfully bring your session to a close.

In order to avoid misunderstandings between Helpers, members and Lively HQ, the time you log in your timesheets must be the same as what you negotiated in advance with your member. Unfortunately, that means if you go past your scheduled finish time by 5 or 10 minutes, you should not include those 5 or 10 minutes in your timesheet. Here's a case study to demonstrate why:

Kelly is working with Sanjay. Sanjay has booked in 10 hours of Kelly's time which are being subsidised by a Council program. It's therefore important that Kelly sticks to 10 hours exactly. On 4 different occasions, Kelly went over by 15 minutes, so the sessions went for an hour and 15 minutes, instead of an hour. She logged this extra time in the Lively app, but Sanjay still thought of these as one hour sessions and Kelly did too as she still had them written down as one hour in her diary.

At the end of her 9th session, Kelly is told by her Support Coordinator that she doesn't have any further sessions left with Sanjay, as she's used up all 10 hours across her 9 sessions. This causes confusion and frustration for Sanjay, who thought they still had one session left to get some final jobs done.

But we don't want your time to go to waste, so here are some strategies for making sure you finish things as scheduled.

Structure for Wrapping Up

First 5 minutes of the session

• At the beginning of the session, remind the member how much time you have together. 

  • "We've got an hour together today. How would you like to get started?"

  • This is included in your script for Starting Your Session.

Last 15 minutes

• Give members a 15 minute warning.

  • "I've just noticed that we've got 15 minutes left, including taking session notes. Are there any last things you'd like to make sure we get done?"

Last 5 minutes

• Complete your session notes:

  • "Before I go, I've got spend the last few minutes making some notes about what we did. Maybe you could help me out with remembering everything that happened?"

• Schedule the next session (if not a one-off session/final session).

  • "Shall we set up our next session now?"

  •  Make sure they have it written down somewhere—ideally in their diary.

After the session

• Using the Lively app, check out of the session and complete your session notes.

Member wants to keep chatting?

This can be pretty tricky! Here are some useful ways you can try and close off the conversation:

• "I'm sorry, I have to head to another session now, and I don't want to keep them waiting. Let's keep this conversation going next time!"

• "I'm sorry, it looks like we've run out of time for this session; would you like to book in longer for our next session so we're not feeling as pressed for time?"