Welcome to Health & Wellness Services
Congratulations on your decision to become a Mendocino College student. We understand that entering college comes with its own set of stressors. Layer these stressors on top of already present challenges to mental wellness, and college may seem especially difficult to navigate. We are here to support you. Mental health and wellness services are available to all enrolled students. Please select the "Access Health & Wellness Student Portal" button below to schedule an appointment.
Staff Referral:
Student of Concern
If you would like to refer yourself (in your role as a student) or a student to Health & Wellness services, please use the Student of Concern Referral form. https://forms.office.com/r/rTzWfhyPYW
Staff
Confidentiality and FERPA
Health & Wellness services are confidential. As a student attending a postsecondary institution, the confidentiality law that informs how your private information is handled is directed by FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99). FERPA is a federal law that establishes the rights of students regarding certain education records and ensures students of the rights of privacy and confidentiality with respect to those records. Additionally, records that are made, maintained, or used only in connection with the provision of treatment are defined as ‘treatment records’ which are subject to more confidentiality restrictions. Subject to several exceptions, FERPA prohibits Mendocino-Lake Community College District from providing student ‘treatment records’ to a third party without prior authorization of the student.
You may grant the College permission to release information about your treatment records to a third party (parent, spouse, employer, etc.) by submitting an Authorization for Use and Disclosure of Personally Identifiable Information form. Once you release your treatment records to a third party who is not considered part of your treatment team, those records being release are then considered ‘educational records.’
Release of Records to Parents: At the postsecondary level, a parent has no inherent right to inspect their child’s treatment records. The right to inspect is limited solely to the student.
It is important to note that if you release treatment record information to someone outside of your treatment team, your treatment records become educational records and all the FERPA guidelines for disclosure of information apply. Please note that while this Release Form authorizes the College to release treatment records to third parties, it does not oblige it to do so.
There are exceptions to confidentiality you should know about. If what is happening to you at the time poses a health or safety threat to yourself or others, we will collaborate with others to keep everyone safe. Counselors are “Mandated Reporters” which means we break confidentiality when we suspect there is abuse or neglect of children or dependent adults. We are also obligated to respond to subpoenas from valid legal entities.