Running A Therapy Practice from Your Home


chairsYou’re starting a counselling business, or thinking of changing your therapy rooms. You have a spare room at home which is currently gathering dust and junk, why not use that?

There are some obvious advantages. There’s no rent to pay. You can save on travel time and costs. If a client cancels or changes their appointment at short notice, you can be more flexible, and it’s easy to use the time productively. The room is your own to do with what you want, when you want, so you can organise it to suit yourself. Seems like a no brainer? Well maybe. But before you take the leap there may be a couple of things you need to think about.

Probably the biggest thing to think about when considering setting up a therapy business in your home, is the loss of your privacy and freedom within your own home. In order to have an appropriate environment for clients, you will probably want to keep those areas that are visible to clients clean and clutter free. If you have children or teenagers this may be more of a challenge for you, than for those who are the sole occupiers of their home.

I visited a therapist in the past who worked from home, in a small spare room accessed through a separate entrance at the side of the house. The door actually led through the therapist’s utility room, which was piled high with appliances, sports equipment, drying clothes, pets baskets and food dishes, bicycles and so on. I found myself really curious on the one hand, and on the other, I felt like I was intruding on their personal space. You may love your house just the way it is, but if you’re going to invite clients there, it helps to ask a colleague or a friend for their view of how it might appear if they were a client.

Clients will see you within your home setting, rather than in a more neutral, anonymous one. This may be okay for you, or it may not. Are you comfortable with clients knowing where you live? If you work with clients who can be volatile or aggressive, you may prefer them NOT to come into your home.

sofa (618x1024)Is the room to be solely dedicated to seeing clients? If you are only seeing clients infrequently, perhaps a couple of hours a week, then your room will be sitting idle the rest of the time. Whether this works for you will depend on your circumstances. Or do you anticipate it will be both personal and client use? If so, you will have to manage the personal contents and belongings when clients come. You may wish to move photos, mementoes, and any irrelevant furniture or clutter. If you use art materials or other tools in the course of your work, you will need to have a way of storing these in a convenient way when the room is not in use.

Is there space where clients can park without inconveniencing family or neighbours? If you are seeing clients one after the other, is there somewhere that they can wait, in the event that you run over time? If not, you may need to allow more time between appointments to ensure there’s no overlap.

Think about how having clients in the house is going to impact on family, children and pets. They may not understand fully the need to keep quiet or respect your request to keep out of sight during client sessions. Neighbours may see your car outside and assume you are at home to callers.

While working from home can bring more flexibility, that same flexibility can also work against those who have a tendency to workaholism. The discipline of travelling to work, and paying for rent imposes a structure and boundary that helps to limit the hours you give to clients.

Accessing the therapy room and bathroom facilities needs to be thought out too. Is the room you’re thinking of using situated close to both the bathroom and the entrance door? If not, you need to think about having a clear passage from door to room to toilet, again removing any personal items or clutter.

When a newly qualified therapist sets up in practice, they may unconsciously imagine that once they qualify (or get accreditation) the clients will flow in. It doesn’t really work like that for most people. This is especially so if you choose to work from home. You probably won’t want to hang a sign outside your door, so you may have to work a bit harder to achieve visibility.

Even if you own your own home, check out with your accountant, local authority, landlord or property management company whether you are legally entitled to work from home. There may be additional rates or other tax or financial consequences from changing the use of your home (even if it’s only a partial change of use.) Working from home allows you to claim some of your home expenses against your income for tax purposes. However, doing so will firmly establish you as running a business from home. And you can’t claim ALL the expenses of your home, only a proportion. Check with your insurer that running a business from your home does not invalidate any aspect of your insurance.

Working from home has many advantages, principally in terms of cost and time savings, but do your homework first. Thinking it through in advance may save you some heartache down the road. Your location is just one of the many things you need to consider. Ideally, you will have a private practice counselling business plan to support you in the many choices you will need to make. Read more in this article about the importance of a business plan and how to make it work for your practice.

Are you wondering where to base your practice? Maybe I can help. Contact me here for your free 20 minute consultation.

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