Brandeis Counseling Center

Your student will benefit from having had an experience of being away from home before going off to college. Students can benefit from their guardians' ongoing emotional support, but they need to be able to rely on themselves to negotiate their daily routines. Students can often feel homesick anytime in the first six weeks of school. It is important to reassure them this is normal and that their peers are likely feeling the same way.

• Encourage them to talk to staff members in their residence halls as well as to other students or to visit the Community Therapists in their residence.
• Try to limit phone contact and visits, as constant contact with home can interfere with your student's ability to acclimate to his/her environment.
• If you are worried they are not transitioning as easily as they might, encourage them to seek out staff in the Dean of Students Office or the Brandeis Counseling Center. The Counseling Center may recommend they join a group with other students who are also transitioning to school for the first time.

It is important for students and families to be prepared for homesickness when it settles in. Most studies suggest that its onset can be immediate, after a few months or anywhere in between. Homesickness is normal and should subside as your student adjusts. It can be felt as anxiety, sadness and nervousness, as well as preoccupation with thoughts of home, family and friends; they're really missing their routines and sense of security.

Homesickness can be helped by establishing a routine, staying engaged with the new college program, doing something to feel closer to home, talking to someone who understands and remembering it will pass.

Students sometimes come to college having been diagnosed with a psychiatric condition and being under the care of providers at home. It is essential for your student's success that the Brandeis Counseling Center know of the clinical needs of your student as close as possible to the beginning of the first semester at Brandeis. Your student can call the Brandeis Counseling Center before arriving to determine if care at the Counseling Center is appropriate, arrange a tour, meet with the staff and sign appropriate forms so that your current treatment team can speak to the staff at the center. Once your student is on campus, they can schedule an initial evaluation.

Success depends in large part upon your child’s current home prescriber anticipating and planning for this transition in advance.  Below are examples of what that treatment plan might look like, depending upon the scenario, with attention to ensuring that clinical needs are met with the resources available.  If you would like to talk through your child’s individual treatment plan, you can always call the Brandeis Counseling Center to speak with a member of the administrative team.

For students who are on medication regimens that are stable and consistently helpful, and do not include controlled substances (e.g. benzodiazepines, stimulants), many home prescribers may feel comfortable remaining your child’s sole prescriber while they are at school.  This plan typically involves scheduling appointments with the home prescriber while home for breaks, and ensuring that prescriptions sent to a Massachusetts pharmacy have an adequate number of refills to last until your child meets with them next.

For students who are on medication regimens that are in flux, are not consistently helpful, or involve controlled substances that may not be able to be prescribed across state lines (e.g. benzodiazepines, stimulants), your child’s home prescriber should plan to partner with a prescriber who is licensed in Massachusetts, such that care is always provided in the state that the student resides at that time (e.g. at home over a break, in Massachusetts during the semester).  In scenarios in which a home prescriber partners with a Massachusetts prescriber, the latter may be a Brandeis Counseling Center psychiatrist, or a prescriber in the local Massachusetts community.

For students whose treatment plan involves medications only, and not talk therapy, then one of the Brandeis Counseling Center’s Care Managers can help you and your home prescriber to find a prescriber in the local Massachusetts community.

For students whose treatment plan involves medications and talk therapy, and for whom there are significant barriers to working with a prescriber in the local Massachusetts community, the student’s Brandeis Counseling Center individual therapist can refer the student for consultation to a psychiatrist at the Brandeis Counseling Center.  Some examples of these barriers include: limited financial resources to cover appointment copays, limited access to transportation for appointments off-campus, or having an insurance plan that is not accepted by prescribers in the local Massachusetts community.

For students whose treatment plan involves medications and talk therapy, and for whom there are not significant barriers to working with a prescriber in the local Massachusetts community, one of the Brandeis Counseling Center’s Care Managers can help you and your home prescriber to find a prescriber in the local Massachusetts community.

In addition to the scenarios outlined above for continuing medication treatment more generally, there are additional considerations that must be taken into account when a student’s treatment plan includes stimulants (amphetamines, methylphenidate, and their derivatives), as these are classified by the DEA as Schedule II medications.

These medications cannot be prescribed with refills, or on a continued basis unless the prescriber is licensed and registered in the state to which the prescription is sent.  As a result, treatment plans that include stimulants will always require your child’s home prescriber to partner with a prescriber who is licensed in Massachusetts, such that care is always provided in the state that the student resides at that time.

For students whose treatment plan involves medications only, and not talk therapy, then one of the Brandeis Counseling Center’s Care Managers can help you and your home prescriber to find a prescriber in the local Massachusetts community.

For students whose treatment plan involves medications and talk therapy, and for whom there are significant barriers to working with a prescriber in the local Massachusetts community, the student’s Brandeis Counseling Center individual therapist can refer the student for consultation to a psychiatrist at the Brandeis Counseling Center.  Some examples of these barriers include: limited financial resources to cover appointment copays, limited access to transportation for appointments off-campus, or having an insurance plan that is not accepted by prescribers in the local Massachusetts community.

After these students have consulted with a Brandeis Counseling Center psychiatrist regarding their symptoms and diagnosis, the Brandeis Counseling Center requires that its psychiatrist review recent neuropsychological testing or verify diagnosis with a student’s home prescriber to support a diagnosis of ADHD.  At this point, they may assume prescribing of stimulant medications that are part of the student’s home treatment plan.

For students whose treatment plan involves medications and talk therapy, and for whom there are not significant barriers to working with a prescriber in the local Massachusetts community, one of the Brandeis Counseling Center’s Care Managers can help you and your home prescriber to find a prescriber in the local Massachusetts community.

• If you are concerned about your student's safety, call Public Safety at 781-736-3333 immediately.

• Try to determine whether your student is having a normative amount of distress or whether the distress is beginning to interfere with daily functioning.

• Ask about classes, attendance and coursework.

• Ask about seeing friends, getting to meals, substance use and sleep habits.

• If it seems that functioning in one or more areas is interrupted, encourage your student to check in with the residence hall staff, a Community Therapist and/or the Brandeis Counseling Center.

• If your student is having trouble with classes, suggest a meeting with an academic advisor. The student can find their advisor by going to the website for Academic Services and looking to see which advisor is responsible for students whose name falls within a certain part of the alphabet.

We are always happy to hear from guardians of students at Brandeis. However, due to issues of confidentiality, we are unable to share any information about a student being seen unless the student has signed a release of information for us to speak to particular designated people.

When guardians reach out to us with concerns, we can pass that information on to therapists and/or other offices around campus that ensure the safety and well-being of our students. If a student has signed a release for us to talk to guardians, we welcome the opportunity to collaborate around issues of concern. We especially welcome contact from guardians who are worried about their student and want to consult about what to do to help them.

The BCC submits insurance claims for all services rendered at the BCC. No out-of-pocket expenses are passed onto the student or their guardians.

If you feel your student is in crisis and may need psychiatric hospitalization, call Public Safety, 781-736-3333. You will be connected to an emergency clinician in the Brandeis Counseling Center. The center will consult with you and help to arrange an evaluation if appropriate.

Once a student at Brandeis has been transported to an emergency room for psychiatric evaluation, both the director/associate director of the Brandeis Counseling Center and the Dean of Students Office become involved with the emergency room in conversations about the disposition of care and next steps. If the student is recommended to an inpatient level of care, the emergency room will arrange for that inpatient stay at a local inpatient psychiatric unit for a length of time to be determined by the psychiatrist on that unit.

The director/associate director, the Dean of Students Office and Academic Services work together during the student's stay to support the student and communicate to the faculty that the student is receiving medical care. Every effort is made to encourage the student to sign releases at the hospital so that families can be enlisted in important conversations about what the student will need after discharge both in terms of care and with regard to their studies.

Sometimes this becomes an opportunity for students and their guardians to confer with Academic Services and to decide whether a medical leave might be appropriate, to allow the student to focus on psychiatric care and well-being.

If you are concerned that your student is not thriving at Brandeis and is in need of intensive psychiatric treatment to flourish here, the first step would be to discuss this with your student. Your student will need to request a medical leave through the Office of Academic Services and provide documentation of a medical condition that necessitates the leave. If the student is already in treatment, their psychiatric team can collaborate to request a leave. If the student is not in treatment, the Office of Academic Services can recommend next steps.

It is important when your student is requesting leave that you also ask for the requirements for return to Brandeis after leave. Your student will need to seek psychiatric care that will allow them to return to Brandeis and be a successful student. Therefore, the university requires documentation of care received to address the condition that necessitated the leave. Students will need to demonstrate that they have developed the coping skills to withstand the stress of a competitive academic and social environment. Academic Services can help your student through this process.