“Do not be afraid to ask for help. Nobody gets through college on their own.”
-Michelle Obama

Why Should Students Care About Counseling Services Offered at My School?

College can be a riveting time of life but for many students, it can also bring about common emotional challenges such as depression, anxiety, addiction, ADHD, or even eating disorders.

It is often very easy for students to begin to feel anxious and stressed trying to balance school, work, friends, and family while also trying to figure out what they want to do career wise. Due to all these stress factors, mental health disorders are a growing concern for many colleges. In order to minimize and improve this issue, colleges across the nation provide their students with valuable resources such as counseling services. In fact, Chemeketa is equipped with 1 or 3 counselors daily, during school hours.

In the event of an emergency when the Chemeketa counseling office is closed, contact the Crisis Hotline 503.581.5535 (available 24 hours) or the 24 hour Psychiatric Crisis Center (PCC) at 503.585.4949.

What Are Counseling Services?

Chemeketa offers free, confidential, counseling services to any currently enrolled students. When we think about counseling services at schools, we might think of counselors only as experts in mental health, but counselors can also be experts on different areas.

For many students, counselors can greatly assist students with career exploration, personal and career counseling, improving life skills, reducing anxiety, managing stress, choosing a career and locating valuable community resources. It is strongly encouraged for students who are unsure or confused with their career path or goals to make an appointment to orient themselves and plan what the next several years will look like.

Chemeketa offers their students a variety of counseling, which serves different purposes, for example:

• Personal counseling – helps console students suffering mental illness issues.
• Career counseling – helps students discover their passions and career paths.
• Crisis counseling – someone is always on call for any student who is experiencing a crisis.
• Guidance classes and workshops – Workshop in career explorations, healthy relationships, stress management, suicide prevention and more.

Personal and crisis counseling services are short-term, consisting of only 1-10  counseling sessions but if more assistance is needed, Chemeketa staff helps students find alternative long-term and helpful resources.

Don’t worry! Chemeketa counseling services are confidential. Chemeketa’s only aim is to help its students. You can see more information about confidentiality by reading the Informed Consent form.

HowDo I Find the Counselor that Best Suits Me?

All of Chemeketa counselors hold advanced degrees in counseling, psychology, and social work. They are committed to providing a safe, welcoming environment for all students regardless of the situation. However, every student is undoubtedly different and in order to get the full benefits of counseling and feel comfortable, you have to put yourself in the right person’s hands. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to counseling, and the counselor that works well for someone else might not work as well for you. Students can view the available counselors on the Chemeketa website.  Within the counseling staff page, you will find brief bios for you to decide who you will most likely connect.

How Can I Schedule an Appointment?

You can schedule a counseling appointment at the Salem campus, Yamhill Valley Campus, Polk Center and Woodburn center. To schedule an appointment, you need to log into My.Chemeketa and click on the services tab, and “Advising”. To your right, you need to click on the location you prefer and click on counseling. You can then choose the reason for appointment and then choose a counselor. After, choose a date and time that best works for you and fill out the following form with as much detail as possible so your counselor is best prepared to meet with you. Also, counselors encourage students to review the Informed Consent form and bring it with them to their first appointment!

Licenses and Attributions

Original chapter work is attributed to Ashley Duran and edited by Grecia Garcia Perez.