A practical guide to connecting session preparation, participant practice and follow-up in DBT Care. Use it to plan a repeatable workflow within your clinical role and your service’s arrangements.
Start with an agreed purpose
A useful weekly workflow starts with a clear question: what information will help you prepare, what will you review together and what should be carried into the next session? Agree that purpose with the participant rather than treating every available app feature as a task to complete.
DBT Care supports trained clinicians and clinician-led services. This guide describes a way to organise work; it is not a treatment protocol, an assessment of an individual participant or a substitute for DBT training and supervision.
1. Before the session: review what was shared
Review the information available to you before deciding what requires discussion. Distinguish participant-shared practice or reflections from clinician-entered information. A blank entry can prompt a question; it should not automatically be interpreted as a lack of effort or progress.
Keep preparation focused on the current agreed work. Note the items you want to clarify and any gaps in your understanding. If information raises a concern, follow your clinical judgement and your service’s response arrangements rather than relying on the app to decide what should happen.
2. During the session: clarify the current focus
Bring the shared information into the clinical conversation and check its meaning with the participant. What was attempted? What was helpful? What got in the way? The app can hold information, but the conversation establishes context and the next agreed focus.
Keep the resulting plan understandable. For example, a de-identified workflow illustration might be: review the agreed practice, discuss the barrier and decide what to revisit next week. This is an illustration of coordination, not a clinical recommendation for a particular person.
3. Between sessions: connect practice with the plan
Use practice guides, diary cards and reflections in ways that support the agreed focus. Discuss what the participant is choosing to share, how that information will be used and when it will be reviewed. Read the privacy information together if questions arise.
Agree contact and response expectations explicitly. An entry or reflection in an app should not be assumed to receive an immediate response. DBT Care does not provide emergency or crisis response, and the AI Skills Coach is not a monitored clinical channel.
4. At the next review: close the loop
Return to the previous focus before creating more tasks. Review what happened, check the participant’s account and decide what to continue, adjust or discuss further. A repeatable rhythm can be small: prepare, agree a focus, practise and review.
For a team, clarify who owns each part of that rhythm. Role clarity, consent, supervision and organisational protocols remain necessary even when information is easier to see. Workflow visibility alone does not demonstrate treatment effectiveness.
Decide whether the next gap is learning, implementation or tooling
If you need to build DBT knowledge, start with professional education. If you have training but struggle to establish the workflow, explore implementation support. If your practice already has a clear clinical structure and you need to compare platform options, review DBT Care’s clinician overview and plans.
Start with the difficulty you can describe, then choose the support that fits it. Avoid adding technology simply because more features are available.