The Article below was published in Vol. 136, Issue 2 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on October 16, 2020.
By: Health and Wellness Center Staff
October is a loaded month in so many ways. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. October 10th was World Mental Health Day. October 11th was National Coming Out Day. All of these are about getting help. And all of these are about the importance of good, healthy communication.
In this regard, the staff of the Health and Wellness Center want to make sure that we’re communicating effectively about how each and every one of you can reach out to us for help. Every year, we run into inaccurate messages that get spun out into the student body about our services. One year it was that we didn’t offer individual therapy. Another year, it was that we charged for our services. Multiple times in the past and present, people have assumed that they needed the student insurance to access our services. These messages form like any other gossip. A precipitating event, usually some form of miscommunication, grows until it becomes a message unto itself. And, as with any other gossip, the antidote is direct communication.
Services are available at the Health and Wellness Center for all students. You do not need to have the student health insurance. You do not need to pay. All services that are performed by Health and Wellness Center staff are free of charge (technically, they’ve already been paid for by your Student Health fee). Counseling staff definitely offer ongoing therapy (I mean, most of us are therapists, so it’d be weird if we didn’t, right?). The one caveat to this is a unique component of the COVID-19 era: we can only offer ongoing therapy to students who currently reside in the state of Illinois. That’s a limitation based on provisions of our professional licenses. And that’s frustrating. But that doesn’t mean that students who live outside of the state of Illinois shouldn’t contact us. Students living outside of Illinois can still contact us for crisis services (we’ll get to the how below). Students living outside of Illinois can still set up an appointment with us and we’ll assist you in finding a therapist geographically near you. Just because we can’t offer you ongoing therapy this semester doesn’t mean we can’t help. You don’t have to go through this alone.
Students seeking to set up an appointment with the Health and Wellness Center staff have a couple of options: · Log into the Lake Forest Student Health Portal · Call (847) 735-5240 (please leave message and someone will respond as soon as possible) · Email healthandwellness@mx.lakeforest.edu
From here, students seeking mental health assistance set up an Initial Consultation with a therapist. This is a short, 15-minute screening session to decide the next step. For students in the state of Illinois and wanting therapy, this will likely end with scheduling a first appointment with a therapist. For students living outside of Illinois, this will likely end with scheduling an appointment with a therapist who can assist you in finding a therapist near you.
Students who are experiencing a mental health crisis have two options. During the business day (8:30 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m., Monday–Friday), students can call or email and request a same-day crisis session with a counselor. After hours, if students feel they are in an acute mental health crisis, they can access our Crisis Counselor On-Call phone at 224-501-1621.
In conclusion, we hope we just wasted your time. We hope you knew all of this LONG before October and that there have been no barriers between you and us. If we do our jobs right, you’ll be sick and tired of hearing all the different ways available to you to contact us. You’ll be so tired of hearing about our services and how to contact us that you’ll be able to rattle off how to schedule an appointment in your sleep. So when you need us, or when a friend needs us, that information will be right there, at the tip of your tongue. We’re ok with that.
But if we didn’t just waste your time, if you hadn’t known how to contact us before or didn’t think you could do it, we’ve just removed one more barrier. If you need us, reach out.
You know how to find us.
