Help, My Records Look Like a Sudoku Puzzle!

Client information and records should be a sacred taonga yet are often devalued and end up resembling a sudoku puzzle—where readers must fill in the gaps. Despite record-keeping being crucial to decision-making and service-users’ experiences, practitioners often are not taught how to keep good records (particularly in time-poor environments). This knowledge gap is then compounded by organisations not articulating a structure for their documentation or expounding how their values and cultural responsivity should be expressed. This commentary provides practical assistance as to how practitioners can complete case notes in time-poor situations by collating case-noting methods, drawing on four models developed by Western researchers. It also explores my reflections about what being a tangata Tiriti meant for my documentation and includes two illustrative examples that I created so my records are more culturally responsive and honouring of te Tiriti o Waitangi and of the client.