E-mail Guidelines

The staff at The Counselling Centre welcomes your contact. We also value your privacy and time. Therefore, we want to let you know the options you have to reach us so that you can make the best decision. We take your time and confidentiality very seriously and we want you to understand the limitations of the use of email.

Confidentiality

While we will do our best to keep your communications private, we cannot guarantee that your email will remain confidential. There are many ways that an email message can be intercepted. If you are concerned in any way about your email being read by someone other than the person you are contacting, please consider other methods of reaching us.

When we respond to your email, we will reply to the address from which it was sent. If you have concerns about other individuals having access to your email, please think about reaching us by telephone or stopping by our offices in Blackburn Hall, Suite 113.  All email communication will be copied to a client file or otherwise saved in a miscellaneous file, if the sender or student referred to is not known to the counselling centre.

On-Line Counselling?

We do not believe that email is an appropriate medium for personal counselling so we do not offer on-line counselling through email. We would much prefer you to contact us in person or by telephone.

Response Time for Your Emails?

We try to check our email regularly. However, if you send us an email, you will not know how soon we will be able to get back to you. We may be on vacation, experiencing an illness, having problems with our network, or some other reason that does not allow us to check our email. This means that your message may not be read immediately.

If you need a timely response, please telephone us or drop by The Centre.

[Portions of these guidelines were adapted with permission from the University of Waterloo]