SIRP is the progress note format you are most likely to meet through an employer rather than a textbook. County behavioral health agencies and Medicaid plans publish SIRP templates and hand them to new clinicians with little explanation, which is why most people searching for it already have a form open in front of them. This guide covers what belongs in each section, a worked example, how it compares with BIRP, GIRP and PIRP, and the disagreement about the last letter that nobody warns you about.
What SIRP stands for
- S, Situation: how the client presented at the start of the session.
- I, Intervention: what you did.
- R, Response: how the client reacted, and progress toward their goals.
- P, Plan: what happens next.
The format belongs to a family. BIRP, GIRP, PIRP and SIRP share the same last three sections and differ only in what the note opens with.
The four sections, step by step
Situation
The client as they arrived. Mood, presentation, what they reported, and anything you observed before you did anything about it.
One published SIRP form describes it as the "patient's presenting situation at the beginning of intervention", and adds that it "may include counselor/clinician observations, patient's subjective report and the intervention setting". That last item is easy to skip and worth keeping. Where the session happened, whether it was in person or by video, and who else was present all belong here.
Keep your own actions out of this section. If you catch yourself writing what you did, that sentence belongs in Intervention.
Intervention
What you did about it. Name the specific technique rather than the modality, because the broad label tells a reader nothing and will not help you when you reread the note in six weeks.
"Walked through a functional analysis of Tuesday's lapse, identifying the three cues that preceded it" is an intervention. "Provided individual counseling" is not.
This section carries more weight in SIRP than in most formats. Where the note supports a claim, the Intervention and Response sections are what a reviewer reads to judge whether the service was medically necessary, so a vague Intervention line is the one most likely to cost you.
Response
How the client reacted to what you did. Observable, specific, and tied to the intervention rather than to the session in general.
The same form defines it as "the patient's response to intervention and progress made toward individual plan goals and objectives", which is a reminder that this section has two jobs. Record the immediate reaction, then connect it to the treatment plan. A note that says the client engaged well but never mentions a goal leaves the second job undone.
If the response was poor, write that. A record showing only good sessions is less useful clinically and less credible on review.
Plan
What happens next. The next appointment, between-session tasks, referrals, and anything you intend to change about the approach.
If your Response section showed the intervention did not land, the Plan has to answer it. That link is the part reviewers look for and the part most often missing.
A worked SIRP note example
Anonymised and illustrative.
Client: adult, individual session
Date: session 12
Situation: Client attended in person, on time, appearing tired and with flat affect. Reported a lapse on Tuesday evening after four weeks of continuous abstinence, described as "one drink that turned into five". Reported immediate guilt and two days of avoiding contact with their sponsor. Denied current intent to return to prior use. Reported sleep disrupted since Tuesday, averaging four hours.
Intervention: Normalised lapse as a common feature of recovery without minimising it. Completed a functional analysis of Tuesday evening, identifying three antecedents: an unplanned schedule change, skipped evening meal, and a call from a family member. Reviewed and revised the existing coping plan to add a specific response to unplanned schedule changes. Role-played the call to the sponsor the client had been avoiding. Reinforced the four weeks of abstinence preceding the lapse as evidence the plan works.
Response: Client initially resistant to the functional analysis, stating "I already know why I did it", but engaged once the three antecedents were written out and commented that they had not previously connected the skipped meal to the lapse. Identified a fourth antecedent independently. Rated confidence in the revised coping plan at 6 of 10, up from a stated 3 of 10 at the start of the session. Completed the sponsor role-play with prompting and agreed to make the call the same evening. Progress toward Goal 1, maintaining abstinence, is set back but not lost. Progress toward Goal 3, using the support network, has improved this session.
Plan: Client to call sponsor this evening and report back at the next session. Continue the revised coping plan, with particular attention to meals on days with schedule changes. Next session in one week rather than the usual fortnight, given the lapse. If a second lapse occurs before then, discuss stepping up the level of care.
Notice the Response section does the work. It records the reaction, quotes the client where it is diagnostically useful, gives a number that can be compared next session, and connects to two named goals. The Plan then answers what the Response found.
SIRP vs BIRP, GIRP and PIRP
- SIRP: Situation, Intervention, Response, Plan. Opens with how the client presented.
- BIRP: Behavior, Intervention, Response, Plan. Opens with observed behaviour.
- GIRP: Goal, Intervention, Response, Plan. Opens with the treatment goal.
- PIRP: Problem, Intervention, Response, Plan. Opens with the presenting problem.
Three of the four sections are identical. What changes is the frame the note is written through, and that choice is usually made by your agency rather than by you.
SIRP has the widest opening section of the four. Behavior restricts you to what was observed, Goal to the treatment plan, and Problem to the presenting issue. Situation takes all of it, including the setting and the client's own report. That makes SIRP forgiving to write and easy to pad, which is the tradeoff.
If you are choosing between formats rather than following a template, our comparison of the main note formats sets them side by side, and we have full guides to SOAP, DAP and PIE notes as well.
Where you will actually meet SIRP
SIRP shows up in publicly funded behavioral health rather than in private practice. County behavioral health departments in California publish SIRP progress note templates and documentation guidance for their contracted providers, and Medicaid managed care plans publish SIRP forms of their own. Aetna Better Health of Louisiana publishes one titled "Progress Note (SIRP Format)".
That origin explains the format's shape. It is built for notes that will be read by someone other than the author: a supervisor, an auditor, or a payer deciding whether to pay for the session.
It also explains why the requirements vary. Some county agencies mandate a specific format, others explicitly do not and accept any structure that contains the required elements, and some have changed their position over time. Your agency's current documentation manual beats anything written about SIRP in general, this guide included.
The P that is not always Plan
Most published guidance expands SIRP as Situation, Intervention, Response, Plan. Not all of it does.
The Aetna Better Health of Louisiana form is titled for Situation, Intervention, Response and Progress, and defines that last section as "the treatment plan progress made toward treatment goals and objectives, as well as the plan for future interventions as determined by the clinical picture".
Read that definition and the practical difference is small, because it asks for the plan too. The difference that matters is what the section leads with. A Plan section opens with next steps. A Progress section opens with movement against the treatment plan and then gets to next steps.
If your agency uses a SIRP form, read the field labels on it before assuming. Writing a clean Plan section into a box the auditor expects to contain Progress is a tedious way to fail a chart review.
Common mistakes to avoid
Putting your own actions in the Situation section. Situation is the client before you intervened.
Naming the modality instead of the technique in Intervention. The broad label is a category, not a description of the session.
Writing a Response that never mentions a goal. The section is defined as covering both the reaction and progress toward objectives, and half of it is routinely missing.
Recording only sessions that went well. A chart with no setbacks reads as incomplete rather than as good work.
Leaving the Plan unconnected to the Response. If the intervention did not land, the Plan has to say what changes.
Assuming the acronym without reading the form. See above.
Writing SIRP notes faster with Soap Notes
The hard part of a templated format is rarely the writing, it is keeping four sections straight while a client is still on your mind. Soap Notes lets you save a SIRP layout as a reusable template, so each session opens with the four headings in place and the previous note one click away, which is where the comparison for your Response section comes from.
