Making referral

*  Quick tips on “How to Refer Students to Counselling Service”  (pdf file for download)

You may consider to refer a student for counselling when you believe he/she has a problem that goes beyond your area of knowledge, your expertise or your own experience. As you may have frequent contact with your students daily, you are in an ideal position to identify students in distress. And it is important to engage the students as early as possible to prevent the problems from getting worse. Below are the common distress signs that you may look for:
 

• Marked and sudden decline in the quality of academic work; frequent absence from class; failure in submitting assignments; lacking motivation or concentration

• Prolonged depressive symptoms such as tearfulness, weight loss, apathy and loss of interest in a lot of things, self-blame, lacking energy and falling asleep in class

• Excessive worry and indecisiveness

• High irritability, angry or violent outbursts

• Withdrawn and isolated from others

• Demonstrating bizarre and strange behavior or speech

• Talk of suicide, self-harm directly or indirectly, expression of hopelessness

Counselling Service 2015 (referenced from guidelines of Counseling Center of UCLA, University of Central Florida, Eastern Kentucky University and North Dakota State University)