Appointments/First Steps

Your first contact

Your first contact with a Mental Health Professional (MHP) will be through a 30 minute phone consultation appointment. During this appointment, your counselor will assess the nature and urgency of your concerns and will work with you to identify the most appropriate next steps for your care. 

You can schedule this initial phone consultation either online or by calling the front desk at 773-508-2530, Option 3. During the phone consultation, you’ll be invited to talk about your situation, and to answer questions of a personal nature, so please be sure to be somewhere where you can speak privately. 

At the end of the phone appointment, your counselor will recommend next steps. Options may include scheduling you for short term individual psychotherapy (either in-person or virtually) through the Wellness Center, or helping you to access off-campus referrals for your ongoing care. If your situation is life threatening or otherwise acute, the Wellness Center also offers same-day crisis and urgent care appointments as needed. Students who reside outside of the state of Illinois are not eligible for individual therapy, but they can use care management for referrals to care, and have access to a variety of mental health groups. 

For those students seeking a medication consultation with a psychiatric provider, the Wellness Center requires you to go through the same phone consultation process. Please see Psychiatry for further information.

Initial appointment

During the phone consultation appointment, you and the MHP may decide that Wellness Center services are a good fit for you. If so, you will be scheduled for an initial appointment for group or individual counseling.

Prior to your first therapy appointment at the Wellness Center (in person or telehealth) you will be asked to complete a consent form for health care services. That can be found by logging into the online student portal here. Your MHP may ask you to complete some surveys and health history questionnaires before your first visit as well. 

The day and time of your initial assessment will, in most cases, be the day and time that you will attend short-term therapy each week with your MHP. Your counselor will talk with you during your initial assessment about scheduling future appointments. 

Appointment Check-In Process

For students who have appointments at the LSC, WTC, and HSC Wellness Center locations, please log in to the student portal on the day of your visit and click “Show Barcode.” Then scan that QR code at the check in station to begin the check in process. If you do not have a mobile device, please see the front desk.