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Referral Guide for Faculty and Staff
When can a referral to a counselor help?
When one of your students share difficulties that are beyond your ability to help, or when a student's behavior suggests serious emotional problems, it may be best to refer the student to the Counseling Office. Counselors can help people work through a wide variety of issues, including:
- Depression & anxiety
- Suicidal thoughts or feelings
- Grief and loss
- Problems in current relationships
- Incest or sexual abuse
- Eating disorders
- Addictions
The Counseling Office provides individual, group and marital/couple counseling in these areas.? Referrals to outside providers may also be made when the situation warrants an evaluation for medication or calls for services best provided by others.
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How do I make a referral?
You have an important relationship with each of your students; this relationship is a powerful vehicle that you can use to encourage someone to seek help.
How can you do this?
Let your student know that you are concerned about his or her welfare but that the problem is beyond your field of expertise. Indicate that counseling may help him or her deal with the situation more effectively. Finally, suggest an initial meeting with a counselor to see if it may be useful.? You can't force a student to seek help, but your expression of concern can be a powerful influence on your student?s choice.
How much should you help?
That depends... on the nature of the problem, the degree of crisis, and the ability of your student to follow through. Sometimes simply giving someone a name to call is sufficient; at other times, actually making a call to the Counseling Office while you are meeting with a student is effective. If you aren?t sure that the student will follow through, you may want to call and arrange a meeting with a counselor, walking the student down to meet with the counselor for the first time. Your goal is to ensure that the student and the counselor make contact.? We'll take it from there.
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What about a crisis?
In an emergency, don't hesitate to act. These are your first resources:
- Potential danger or medical emergency...
Immediately call Public Safety (ext. 5511). They will respond in any cases of immediate danger.
- Psychological or Emotional crisis...
Call the Counseling Office (ext. 4650). We can provide counseling and assess the need for more extensive psychological services, making arrangements as necessary.
- Non emergency medical situation...
Call the Health Service (ext. 5800). They can respond and assess the situation. If there is need for more extensive assistance, they will make arrangements.
- Student Disruption...
In a non-emergency situation, call the Office of the Dean of Students (ext. 4610) for information about dealing with disruptive students.
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What will I hear back?
Because the counseling process is confidential, we cannot discuss with you what your student shares with us. In fact, we can't even tell you whether the student has made contact with us without his or her permission. We do, however, encourage students to let you know that they have followed through on your referral and made contact with us. We may also ask the student if we can contact you for additional information.
MORE ON CONFIDENTIALITY
Counseling requires a private and confidential relationship in which one can feel safe to talk about sensitive concerns. In order to safeguard this, information shared with counselors is treated with the strictest confidence.
What does this mean? Counseling Office policy on confidentiality and release of information is guided by professional ethics, University regulations, and state and federal law. Information shared in counseling is not disclosed to others, nor does it become part of a student's academic record or an employee?s personnel record. In general, we won't release information about clients to others without prior written consent. A client may, for instance, want us to contact other counseling or medical providers, but we would require a written consent form authorizing us to do so. The only exception to this policy is the unlikely event that confidential information is needed to protect someone's health or safety, or its release is mandated by state or federal law.
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Cost and Eligibility
Services are provided free of charge to all current Northeastern students. All Northeastern students are eligible to receive psychological counseling services. Limited consultation and referral services are provided for members of the faculty and staff. As employees, members of the faculty and staff can also contact the University's Employee Assistance Program (Magellan Behavioral Health at 866-659-3848).
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What are the qualifications of the counselors?
The counseling staff is composed of professionals with a variety of different backgrounds, skills and interests primarily from the Psychology and Counseling fields. All permanent staff members hold Doctoral or Masters degrees in their fields of study, and most are licensed in their professional specialties. Doctoral and masters-level interns also provide services under the direct clinical supervision of the counseling staff. Click here to view a current listing of our staff.
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For more information...
To find out about any of these services, to arrange an appointment, or to discuss a possible referral, contact the Counseling Office, (D-024), or call (773) 442-4650.
- From any campus phone, Dial: ext. 4650
- From off-campus, Dial: (773) 442-4650
Where are we located?
Room D-024 (Lower Level, D-Building). Click here to view a map.
Office Hours
Counseling Office hours during normal semester periods are:
9:00 am - 7:00 pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday
9:00 am - 4:00 pm Friday
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