Confidentiality
Confidentiality is an issue that we at the Health and Counseling Center take very seriously. The Health and Counseling Center, the ethical principles of counseling professionals, and Oregon law are all in agreement about the importance of the confidential interactions between you and your counselor and/or psychiatric provider. Be aware that we are an integrated health and counseling center; we have an “umbrella” of confidentiality within our center, meaning that we coordinate care within our staff. However, we cannot and do not pass any information on to any other student services division, including the Office of the Dean of Student Services and Academic Support Services, unless you give us permission to do so or if emergency circumstances require it.
Your counselor and/or psychiatric provider will not speak about you to your parents, your friends, your professors, or anyone else without your explicit written permission. That includes indicating if you have been seen in the Health and Counseling Center or not.
You may sign a release of information for the Health and Counseling Center to speak with someone else about you. We try to make these releases as specific as possible, with detailed information about what information may be released, as well as what may not be released, and an expiration date.
In rare and serious situations, we may be legally and ethically mandated to break confidentiality. If there is a risk of serious harm or death to you or someone else or if a court orders information to be provided, then we may need to break confidentiality.