A group intake form is an individual intake form plus four things, and the four are where all the work is.

• A screening section, because you are deciding fit with a specific group of specific people, not just accepting a referral.

• A confidentiality section that says what you cannot promise, since you control your own conduct and not the other members'.

• The group agreement, in writing, signed — attendance, lateness, contact between members outside sessions, what happens when someone wants to leave.

• A plan for exits and absences, agreed before anyone needs it.

The identification, history, risk and money sections carry over unchanged from an individual intake. Do not rebuild them; reuse the form you already have and bolt the four sections on.

What does the screening conversation cover?

Run it one-to-one, before the form is finalised, and cover four things.

Whether the group's focus matches what they came for. Whether they can tolerate being one of eight rather than the only one. What they will do with something difficult that comes up between sessions, given that you are not available to them individually in the way an individual client would be. And whether there is anyone in the group they already know — which comes up more than people expect in smaller cities and in any professional community.

Write the outcome down either way. A decision not to place someone is a clinical decision, and it belongs in your notes with the reasoning.

What has to be in the confidentiality section?

The part that is genuinely different: you can bind yourself and you cannot bind the other members. The section has to say that plainly, and it has to say it before anyone has disclosed anything.

Ontario social work puts the timing obligation in a single clause: "College registrants shall inform clients early in their relationship of the limits of confidentiality of information" (OCSWSSW 5.1.3). In a group, "the limits" include a limit that has nothing to do with law or subpoena — it is the other seven people in the room.

Two sentences do it. What is said here is not to be repeated outside the group. That is an agreement between members, not something the facilitator can enforce or guarantee.

One record for the group, or one per member?

One per member. Ontario's psychology College states the obligation per client — "Registrants must keep a record regarding the services they provide to each client" — and requires each record to contain "Dates and details of every relevant or material service contact or consultation" (CPBAO Standard 9.2).

That has a practical consequence worth designing for at intake: a session note that names other members puts their information into a file that belongs to someone else. Most facilitators keep a general group note and an individual note per member, and write the individual notes so that the others are not identifiable in them.

What happens to the forms of people who don't get a place?

The clearest published Canadian answer to this comes from Ontario's psychology College, and it names group screening specifically:

"Registrants are not obliged to retain personally identifiable information which a person has not provided consent to collect, inquiries about services which did not result in the provision of services, or for recipients of prevention, public education, group training, emergency or post- emergency group services, or group screening services"

(CPBAO Standard 9.4(d))

Read it as written. It says you are not obliged to retain — a permission, not an instruction to destroy — and it is one College speaking for one profession in one province. But it is squarely on the situation, which is a screening intake that did not lead to a placement, and it answers the drawer-of-forms problem that running two intakes a year produces.

The counselling therapy standards adopted in Nova Scotia point in a different direction on what is recorded, requiring a "record of consultations regarding clients, including electronic consultations, telephone calls, text messages, e-mails" (CCPA Standards of Practice). Between them: keep the screening conversations you had with the people who joined, and decide deliberately — rather than by accident — what happens to the rest.

What changes if the group runs online?

Two things, both of which belong on the form rather than in the first session.

Where each member will be. With eight members the odds that one of them is in another province are no longer small, and the rule follows the client: "Registrants comply with relevant professional licensing requirements in the jurisdictions where clients are located" (CRPO 3.4.5). Ask, per member, for every intake round.

Where the platform keeps things. Ontario social work asks registrants using online platforms to "ensure that client information is stored in a jurisdiction where the privacy laws are consistent with Ontario laws or, where applicable, Canadian federal laws" (OCSWSSW 5.3.1) — a question to settle when you choose the video tool, not when a member asks.

Add a line to the group agreement about the member's own end of the call: who else is in the room, whether headphones are used, and that nobody records.

The short version

Reuse your individual form. Add screening, a confidentiality section that admits its own limits, a signed group agreement, and an exit plan. Ask every member which province they will be in. Then decide, in advance, what happens to the files of the people you screened and did not place.

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