Providing AOD Services to Students in College

A colleague posed the following questions on an online discussion group to which I subscribe:

I am seeking feedback about how private, Christian colleges provide substance abuse treatment for students.  Specifically, how are referrals from administrative sources such as judicial affairs handled?  Are there separate mandated and voluntary treatments?  How is student confidentiality maintained or addressed in light of community abstinence policies? 

Here is the reply I posted to the list:

These are wonderful questions and ones that get asked all to infrequently, especially by administrators in higher ed. The good news, as the saying goes, is that there are literally thousands of pages written on this general topic and these specific questions…the bad news is, there are literally thousands of pages written on this general topic and these questions J So, where to start…

  

How are referrals from administrative sources such as judicial affairs handled? When student affairs and judicial affairs are walking in sync, this is a relatively easy question to address. When at a small, urban, Catholic university, we negotiated what we called an “alternate sanctions program” for those first-offenders or subsequent offenders where the infractions were minor, e.g., no hospitalization; no injuries. In this program, there were set consequences that would follow specific violations—deferred suspension of housing, probation, etc.—but students were offered the choice between a hefty monetary fine or to participate in an alcohol awareness program modeled on harm reduction and Motivational Interviewing as the last consequence of the violation. This increased the likelihood that students would participate in the educational alternative and do so “voluntarily,” which allowed the practitioner presenting the program to be the “good guy” who allowed the student to save $X, not to mention used choice to more directly involve the student in the process.

How is student confidentiality maintained or addressed in light of community abstinence policies? Regarding the issue of confidentiality, students would be told at the first session that everything that went on in the sessions was confidential and nothing, including attendance info, would be released w/o a written consent to do so. That said, students were reminded that it would be in their best interest to allow judicial affairs to at least know about their attendance. NOTE: A written report would be prepared for Judicial Affairs, but again would not be released until (1) the student reviewed the report with the practitioner and (2) provided the written consent. A similar process was used with MANDATED students. NOTE: As a counselor I addressed the “seeing mandated clients” dilemma by ensuring students that I “work for you and not judicial affairs” and for this reason would not release info unless such was indicative of likely harm to oneself or others. For details/copies of forms/etc. please contact me back channel: Chapman.phd@gmail.com

At the end of every semester I would routinely hear from judicial affairs about how students actually found the alcohol sessions interesting if not enjoyable. I would be asked, “What are you doing over there? When we sent him/her your way, he/she went kicking and screaming.” It was this student compliance with the program that allowed judicial affairs to recognize that approaching high-risk student behavior as something done “with a student” rather than “to a student” was actually more productive…a collaborative rather than adversarial approach.

Where the issues you raise become challenging is when senior administration and/or judicial affairs folks see violation of institutional policy as being a hanging offense AND assert their need to know everything that goes on as the result of that violations. In this day and age we tend to see institutions open to my suggestions above regarding alcohol, but closed to them when the violation is for “drugs other than alcohol.”

I suggest that you look at the literature related to (1) environmental management and (2) Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention with College Students, BASICS. Basic info on both can be found on my web site. I also suggest that looking at my 3-monograph series entitled, When They Drink, especially the first one, which includes invited essays on all aspects of addressing high-risk and dangerous collegiate drinking. Links can be found at http://robertchapman.net/essays.htm

What do you think?

Dr. Robert