Ending the Engagement: Ethical Case Termination in Intervention Work

Matt Brown • 2026-08-27

We spend enormous professional energy learning how to start well — the first call, the pre-engagement assessment, the family rehearsal. We spend far less on how to stop. Yet case termination in intervention work is where many engagements go sideways: the family still texting eight months later, the case that quietly went dark and was never formally closed. Ending an engagement is a clinical act, not an administrative one, and it deserves the same deliberateness you bring to intervention day.