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With an Event Application revealing concerns regarding suicidal thoughts, ideations or past attempts, Reliant typically may require (depending on the specific individual situation) as an additional condition of - a counselor/therapist recommendation before acceptance - final acceptance. This may be required, even if the event director and Reliant are still in favor of moving forward toward acceptance.  

The As a potential condition for acceptance is that , Reliant would like ask the applicant to sign a release waiver with their counselor/therapist. This waiver would then allow the program director (or both program director and local pastor) to be able to contact the counselor/therapist and get their thoughts and recommendation on the applicant attending the program (or not).  Reliant wants the program director to be on the waiver because we want to have the ability to contact the counselor/therapist to keep the lines of communication open over the entire course of the event, if a follow up conversation ever becomes necessary. However, we Reliant would be open to allowing a local pastor to be that person as well listed on the waiver, if the local pastor is also attending the program with them to the applicant and will continue following up with them. 

The applicant’s acceptance could be conditional on them signing the release waiver, thereby giving the program director/local pastor the ability to talk with the counselor/therapist.  If the applicant does not want to sign the release waiver, then this may possibly be deemed an unwillingness to co-operate (which could may possibly be construed that they are potentially hiding something) and Reliant may decide that it is not willing to accept them for liability reasons. If the counselor/therapist does not recommend them attending the program, then generally Reliant will not accept them for the program.

If the counselor/therapist does recommend the applicant for attending the program, but program director is still not convinced that the applicant should be accepted (even after talking to the counselor/therapist), then Reliant reserves the right to not accept the applicant  even if the counselor says it’s fineapplicant.

In most cases, the participant applicant is already seeing a counselor. This is standard procedure for the counselor to talk to someone (we recommend the program director or if need be the local pastor) about their client. Once the participant signs the release the counselor is able to communicate with that person  as to whether or not they recommend their client attend the program over the summer. 

If the participant is not seeing a counselor/therapist, then we Reliant may ask that they go see a licensed counselor in order to move forward with our conditions for acceptance. But,  we also understand that a counselor/therapist may not want to make a recommendation after just one or two therapy sessions and we Reliant will need to take that into consideration on how to move forward from there. 

These types of scenarios will be treated on a case by case basis. Reliant may potentially move forward with provisionally accepting an applicant prior to the conditional acceptance criteria being completed, . Reliant may do this with the caveat that we could still potentially withdraw initial acceptance from the applicant after initial acceptance , if after any condition(s) are met and we still later decide that the applicant should not move forward with actually attending attend the program.  Reliant suggests that the program director at least have the applicant state that they are willing to move forward, with understanding this above condition, before we Reliant officially accept accepts them. The final decision is left in the program directors hands to say if they would prefer that Reliant wait until the condition(s) have been fully met and discussed before moving forward. Or if the program director feels comfortable, Reliant can move forward knowing we could potentially retract our acceptance at a later time. 

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• Share with the applicant that we are excited for him/her to have this opportunity.
• Discuss that we want to make this summer the program a success for them.
• Explain that there are some condition(s) that he/she needs to meet in order to be accepted.
• Explain to him/her the needed recommendation from his/her counselor/therapist and how to obtain that (see instructions below).
• Explain that we will need to wait for the program director to review the counselor's recommendation before we move forward.
• Explain to them that if he/she is conditionally accepted, one of the conditions is generally to meet with a staff member for # of weekly meetings for check-in, accountability, and to care for him/her.
• After the meeting, respond back to the program director with how the meeting went, and if he/she agrees to those condition(s).

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If the counselor does not specifically say state that the written recommendation to the program director may not be forwarded or shared, then Reliant would like to have a copy of the recommendation to keep for their records. Thus, if the counselor notes that this may only be shared with the program director, then Reliant will put the decision in the program director's hands to make the decision as to whether or not they recommend acceptance of the applicant based on the counselor's recommendation (as not to break the confidentiality agreement). If the program director sees any reason based on the counselor's recommendation, not to accept the applicant, then the program director would need to make the decision to not accept the participant. 

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Many counselors can not continue meeting with their client during the program if they are  attending a summer program out of state because when they cross state lines they do not have a license to practice counseling in that state. However, there are some counselors do allow for FaceTime Face Time meetings or phone calls. If the participant can continue meetings with their counselor over the summer we highly recommend that they continue meeting.  

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Reliant's usual condition for any emotional and psychiatric concerns is to ask require the participant to meet with a summer program leadership staff for a certain number of weeks over the summer to check in and see how they are doing.   Typically the summer program leadership staff that is meeting with the participants are is not a licensed counselorscounselor. Because of this, Reliant recommends the local summer program leadership review the information below to become familiar with what constitutes an involuntary commitment/mandatory treatment for a person to receive emergency psychiatric care (often resulting in hospitalization) if necessary. This is only if the person themselves does not voluntarily admit themselves and is deemed a danger to themselves (typically in the case of thoughts of suicide or self-harm.) We want to make sure the program leadership is aware of when that they would may need to contact law enforcement if ever such an occasion should arise. 

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