Psychological Services Agreement
Below is the Psychological Services Agreement students will be asked to sign when they come to the Counseling Center. Questions can be directed to our reception staff.
Welcome to the Counseling Center at the University of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign, where we have been helping students achieve their goals since 1938. Shortly you will be meeting with a counselor who will want to know how they can help you today. With your input, and your counselor’s clinical insight, you will develop a plan together that is specific to your needs. This plan may include receiving services at the Counseling Center, a referral to another department within the university, and/or a referral to a mental health provider in the community.
Clinical Staff
Our counselors consist of psychologists, social workers, and professional counselors. All of our counselors receive clinical training throughout the year via professional conferences and workshops, and all of our counselors have been trained to manage most student needs within our scope of service. Our Center is also an accredited training facility, where we train doctoral and masters-level interns to become future psychologists and social workers. If you are meeting with one of our trainees today please strongly consider consenting to be video-recorded as part of their training. All of our trainees’ work is supervised by licensed clinicians.
Scope of Services
The services offered by the Counseling Center, like many other university counseling centers, are time-limited, which means you can begin working on developing new skills right away to begin your journey of feeling better. The clinical services we offer include: time-limited individual therapy; group counseling; specialized assessments (alcohol/drug use, eating concerns, academic issues, & suicidal ideation/risk assessments); and skills-based workshops. Our short-term therapy model can be most effective with the following problems including, but not limited to:
- Academic distress/stress management
- Mild/moderate anxiety or depression
- Relationship/roommate concerns
- Family distress
- Harm reduction drug/alcohol use
- Social skills
- Stress management
- Lack of motivation
- Identity development
- Microaggressions/racism/sexism and other forms of oppression
- Resiliency
- Homesickness
- Sexual concerns
- Grief/bereavement
- Perfectionism
- Time management
Services Outside of Our Scope
Many students achieve their counseling goals with our time-limited model, although some students may have additional needs that are beyond what we are able to offer. For those students who need alternative services, we may be able to get you started by offering you support and helping to connect you to the most appropriate level of care. Below is a list of services that are beyond our scope, necessitating a referral to a community mental health provider:
- Medication management
- Long-term individual counseling
- Forensic evaluations/court mandates
- Emotional Support Animal certification
- Severe eating disorders/substance use
- Chronic suicidality/homicidality
- Serious and persistent mental illness (Major Depression, Bipolar Disorders, Schizophrenia and Borderline Personality Disorder)
Provision of Services
Most of our services are provided in person, at the main Counseling Center or in our embedded locations across campus. In limited cases (such as when a client is temporarily off-campus but in the state of Illinois) we can offer telehealth services. The Counseling Center’s ability to offer telehealth services is limited and is impacted by clinical criteria, professional guidelines, and state law.
Confidentiality
The Counseling Center recognizes that confidentiality is essential to effective counseling. The Counseling Center complies with applicable state and federal laws regulating confidentiality as well as professional ethical codes. Treatment records made, maintained, or used by the Counseling Center will not be disclosed to others without your written consent or unless permitted or required by law.
Limits of Confidentiality
Examples of required or permissible disclosures of your records that may be made without your consent include but are not limited to:
- Colleagues within the Counseling Center routinely consult with each other for the purposes of clinical supervision and care coordination
- Peer review of services
- To an attorney for the university or for a counselor relating to their legal rights or their duties to you and the services being provided to you
- To enable a review of the Counseling Center or your counselor for purposes of licensure, statistical compilation, funding, accreditation or audit
- As required by law, such as to comply with a valid court order
- In accordance with abuse and neglect laws, including but not limited to the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act and the Elder Abuse and Neglect Act
- To provide emergency medical care if you are unable to care for yourself
- To protect you or others from a clear, imminent risk of serious physical or mental injury or disease or death
- To warn or protect others if you have communicated a serious threat of physical violence against a reasonably identifiable victim or victims
- More information about required and permissible disclosures can be found in the Illinois Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Confidentiality Act.
Client Rights
As a client of the Counseling Center, you have specific rights which include the ability to:
- Request that the Counseling Center amend your record if you believe the record is inaccurate, misleading, or in violation of your rights of privacy.
- Request restrictions on what information from your record is disclosed to others.
- Request an accounting of most disclosures of personal health information that you have neither consented to nor authorized.
- Determine the location to which protected information disclosures are sent.
- Consent or not consent to have your sessions recorded, for the purpose of in-house supervision.
- Withdraw your consent for clinical services.
- Have any complaints you make about the Center’s policies and procedures documented in your record.
- Access a written copy of this Agreement and the Center’s privacy policies and procedures.
Client Responsibilities
When students come to the Counseling Center they are entering into a partnership with their counselor with the goal of working collaboratively to best meet the student’s needs. By entering into this partnership with your counselor you agree to the following:
- I recognize that to feel better it will take some time and will require me to actively work toward my goals outside of my sessions.
- I understand that the Counseling Center’s services are time-limited in nature and that if I require additional mental health services, I may be referred for services outside of the Center.
- I will contact the Counseling Center as soon as possible if I need to cancel or reschedule my appointment.
- If I am not satisfied with my counseling experience, or want to change counselors, I will talk with my counselor about my concerns and work toward potential solutions.
- To get the most out of my counseling experience, I will be open and honest with my counselor when talking about my needs and progress.