All Catholic University Counseling Center records and counseling services are confidential and are not a part of your Catholic University academic record.
Any information that you disclose to the Counseling Center is safeguarded by the District of Columbia Mental Health Information Act of 1978.
Under this law, we are responsible for protecting the confidentiality of all forms of mental health information: written, oral and tape-recorded. We may disclose information about you only with your written authorization. Confidentiality may be broken only under the following emergency conditions:
- when there is substantial risk of an imminent and serious physical injury to you or to other persons;
- when the information you disclose contains evidence of current physical or sexual abuse of minor children, elderly adults, or adults with disabilities which make them more vulnerable to abuse; or
- in response to a court order.
The law also provides that under certain circumstances, you have the right to inspect and duplicate your mental health records upon written request. You may confer with the Director of the Counseling Center to discuss the conditions under which the inspection can occur.
On occasion, parents, Catholic University faculty members or Catholic University staff members will contact the Counseling Center to discuss a student they believe to be a Counseling Center client. Even if it seems clear that a client has disclosed that he or she is being seen here to a parent or other inquiring third party, we protect all clients' confidentiality by stating that we can neither confirm nor deny that any particular student is a Counseling Center client. We do offer to take information from inquiring third parties and, if the student to whom the caller is referring is indeed a client, to pass the information along to the client's assigned counselor.
Our staff members will be happy to answer any questions you might have concerning confidentiality.