Confidentiality Statement

All contacts with a counselor in Student Counseling Services (SCS) are covered by the Illinois Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Confidentiality Act.

This means that any information disclosed during your contact with SCS will be kept strictly confidential as required by this Act, and by applicable ethical standards. Your written permission is required before any information about your contact with SCS is released to anyone outside SCS. This means if your roommate, friend, parent, or professor, etc., calls us, we cannot even acknowledge that we know of you. It also means if you want us to release information to someone else, we cannot do so until you give us permission in writing.

According to the Act, however, there are three situations when we are required to release information:

1. If a minor child is at risk of being abused or neglected, a counselor would be required to report that information to the appropriate agency to assure the safety of the child.
2. If you present an imminent risk of serious injury to yourself. In this case, the counselor would take action to assure your safety, releasing only the information needed to do this.
3. If you threaten serious harm to another person. Again, we would have to take action to protect the other person, releasing only the information necessary to assure the person’s safety.

If you have any questions about confidentiality, please call the SCS at (309) 438-3655.