Confidentiality and Counseling Services

Counselors maintain confidentiality in accordance with the ethical guidelines and legal requirements of their profession. Effective counseling sometimes requires that staff members share confidential information with other counseling and health services staff members for training purposes or to coordinate care. Counseling and health services staff may also receive information about you from other offices on campus as part of their role as consultants on campus; however, CHS will not share information about you without your written permission, except under the following circumstances:  

• If you present a serious danger to yourself or another person;
• If you are under 18 and your parent or legal guardian requests your medical records;
• If you are under 18 years of age and disclose abuse or neglect to your counselor;
• If you disclose that a minor child, dependent adult or elderly person is currently at risk for abuse or neglect from you or someone else;
• If a valid subpoena is issued on your records, or your records are otherwise subject to a court order or other legal process requiring disclosure;
• In the rare case where the office of the dean of students and/or the chief of university police has a serious concern about your safety or the safety of the community.

Counseling and Health Services Email Policy

Email is not a confidential form of communication, so your privacy on email is not guaranteed. Also, while we check our email often, we make no promise concerning when or how often e-mail is read. You have no way of knowing whether the recipient is unavailable due to vacation, illness or other reason. Therefore, your message may not be read promptly. We ask that you contact your counselor or the office by telephone at 978.542.6410.

Our informed consent document is intended to give you general information about our counseling and mental health services. See below to download the informed consent document and authorization form for disclosure of health care information.