Informed Consent

Confidentiality

The Counseling Center is committed to maintaining your confidentiality. This means that with the exceptions of the situations reviewed below, we will not talk with anyone outside of the Counseling Center (including parents or Simmons University administrators or faculty) without your verbal and written permission (see exceptions below). No record of your counseling is contained in any academic, educational, or job placement file.

The Counseling Center staff works as a team. Your counselor will likely consult with other Counseling Center colleagues and supervisors to provide the best possible care. If you are receiving concurrent care from both the Counseling and Health Centers, we may, on occasion, find it helpful to consult with Health Center staff. When you fill out the Consent to Treatment form prior to your initial session, you will see a question asking if we have your permission to consult with the Health Center.

In order to best maintain your confidentiality, we prefer to use email for scheduling purposes only.

Exceptions to Confidentiality

If there is evidence of harm to yourself and/or others, Counseling Center staff members are legally required to report this information to the authorities responsible for ensuring your (or others’) safety, and/or requiring that you be assessed at a local emergency room. 

If Counseling Center staff require you to be assessed in the emergency room, the Counseling Center will inform the Dean for Student Experience.  

If we have reason to be concerned about your safety, and you are not responding to us within a reasonable period of time, in rare occasion, we may ask the Residence Life staff to do a Wellbeing Check.  If we do this, we will not disclose any information other than requesting the Check due to our concern.

We are required to notify the appropriate state agency if we have reason to believe that a child under the age of 18, an elderly person, or a disabled person is being abused or neglected. 

If a judge issues a court order, we may be required to release information contained in records and/or testify in court.