Family Therapy - Terms of Service
These Terms of Service provide you with important details about our family therapy services, information privacy and sharing, and your rights and responsibilities when you attend Family Therapy at The Bouverie Centre.
The Bouverie Centre is a state-wide provider of family therapy services, funded by the Victorian Department of Health. We are also a practice-research-translation centre of La Trobe University, committed to integrating research across all our services, including our family therapy services, academic teaching, and workforce training.
What we offer
We aim to offer rapid access to a first family therapy session. We do not hold a waitlist. Families can access two phases of family therapy services. They are:
- Walk-In Together: All families begin with what we call a Walk-In Together session. This is online for everyone, using a secure Zoom link. Two-weeks after this session, your therapist will call you to check in about progress made during and since the first session. For many families, this timely assistance is enough to help them improve their situation.
- Multi-Session Family Therapy: If, after the Walk-In Together session, you and your therapist decide that continuing sessions are needed, your therapist can offer additional sessions. These sessions are offered via telehealth and/or in our consulting rooms either by:
- A Bouverie Centre Therapist who can work with your family for up to 10 sessions over 12 months OR
- A Family Therapy Teaching Clinic, comprising mental health professionals undertaking advanced study in Family Therapy, led by a Senior Bouverie Family Therapist. They can offer up to 6 sessions.
The Bouverie Centre also offers a range of Group Therapy Workshops that provide additional therapeutic support to parents, carers and families.
Cost
Our service is funded by the Victorian Department of Health and provided at no cost to 200 families who meet our eligibility requirements and who agree to our Terms of Service, listed on the next page.
Who do we see?
We see Victorian families seeking support for their well-being and relationships, in light of challenges related to a member’s diagnosed mental health condition, or alcohol and other drug problem, and/or past trauma or abuse. We provide specialist family therapy services for First Nations and LGBTIQA+ families who are eligible for our service.
Some limits and practicalities:
- We are a small specialist team of family therapists, and we offer six new Walk-In Together appointments each week. At times we may be fully booked, and we do not run a waitlist. If we are fully booked when you call, we will invite you to call us back as we open new appointments every few days.
- We are a tertiary service which means family members have usually sought help from another mental health or primary care service before us.
- We cannot offer individual therapy,couples therapy or services related to active or pending Family Court proceedings, or the implementation of Parenting Orders (Consent or Court).
- We cannot offer a family therapy service in situations of serious current family violence.
- For all families not eligible for our service we actively refer families to an appropriate service/practitioner.
- We mostly offer sessions during business hours, Monday to Friday. The Family Therapy Teaching Clinic can sometimes offer a 5.15pm appointment on Wednesdays & Thursdays.
- Before we schedule an appointment, your family members need to agree to attend sessions together.
Agreement Acknowledgement
By engaging in our clinical services, you are agreeing to the terms outlined below.
1. Information storage and use, privacy and confidentiality
All client information is kept on our secure electronic database. Bouverie Centre therapists and necessary research and administration staff have access to this database. Family members can access their information in accordance with the Bouverie Centre Privacy Statement, following discussion with the Clinical Program Manager.
Standard, routine information at Registration, Intake and entry to Family Therapy is collected from all families. This may be shared or reported in the following ways:
- For legal purposes: We are required by law to share information in circumstances of risk to yourself or others. This includes but is not limited to your file being subpoenaed by a Court of Law; the assessment or management of family violence risk under the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme, or Child Information Sharing Scheme; mandatory reporting of reasonable belief of child physical or sexual abuse.
- For Dept. Health central records: We are required to record and share with the Victorian Dept. Health standard registration information including referral source, name of one family member, their address, date of birth, gender, contact number, email, country of birth and Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander identification. Information about your attendance at sessions may be accessed by mental health clinicians in public mental health services to confirm prior access to services.
- For evaluation, reporting and submission purposes: We collate basic information reported by all families, including standard registration, intake, baseline and pre-post first session problem ratings, and case closure information provided by the therapist and the family members. We collate service provision information from file records. All information remains anonymous. This information enables the Bouverie Centre to describe the needs of families who seek our service, in reporting to funders, grant submissions and research papers.
- For research purposes: Separate to this, we seek to understand how families change and grow over time. You will be invited to join our Family Stories study, with opportunities to share your story of your family’s progress during and after finishing work with us. This is voluntary.
2. Cancellation of Walk-In Together session
We are a specialist service and have a limited number of new appointments each week. Please consider carefully each family member’s availability and readiness before you accept an appointment. If you need to cancel your appointment, please give a minimum of three business days’ notice so we can offer your place to another family.
Please note that we may not be able to offer your family another appointment. You will be asked to contact us again to book a time to speak with a Family Care Coordinator, who will assess Walk-In Together appointment available and suitability at that time.
3. Finishing up in multi-session work
You can choose to stop attending The Bouverie Centre at any time, ideally deciding together with your therapist. When you stop attending our service and there is no contact with The Bouverie Centre for two months, we will close your case. We regard scheduling and keeping appointments a mutual responsibility. If we receive more than two successive cancellations, we will consider closing your case. You are welcome to contact our Centre again in the future, and we will reassess your family’s needs and our service availability at that time.
4. Complaints and Feedback
For any feedback, questions or concerns relating to the services provided by The Bouverie Centre, or your rights as a service user, please feel free to contact your therapist or the Clinical Program Manager on (03) 8481 4800.
5. Changes to Terms of Service
The Bouverie Centre reserves the right to update or amend the Terms of Service when needed.
These Terms of Service were last updated on the 31st July 2025.
Last updated 22 March 2024