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

As a potential condition for acceptance, Reliant would ask the applicant to sign a release waiver with their counselor/therapist. This waiver would then allow the Collegiate Reviewer (or both collegiate reviewer and local pastor) to be able to contact the counselor/therapist and get their thoughts and current assessment on their emotional stability (we cannot ask for their recommendation as that would be too much liability for them) on the applicant attending the program (or not).  Reliant wants the collegiate reviewer 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, Reliant would be open to allowing a local pastor to be that person listed on the waiver if the local pastor is also attending the program with the applicant and will continue following up with them. 

The applicant’s acceptance approval by the Reliant National reviewers could be conditional on the participant 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 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 give a positive assessment of the applicant attending the program, then generally Reliant will not accept the applicant for the program.

If the counselor/therapist current assessment does not show emotional stability for the applicant for attending the program, but the collegiate reviewer 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.

In most cases, the 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 to discuss the current assessment with their client to attend the program over the summer. 

For more serious concerns, we may ask for a counselor's recommendation as a condition for acceptance.  In most cases, the participant is already seeing a counselor. If the participant is not seeing a counselor, we recommend that they begin, but we /therapist, then 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 an assessment after one session. 

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just one or two therapy sessions and 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 if after any condition(s) are met and we still later decide that the applicant should not attend the program.  Reliant suggests that the local pastor at least have the applicant state that they are willing to move forward, with understanding this above condition, before Reliant officially accepts them. The final decision is left in the collegiate reviewer's 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 national reviewer feels comfortable, Reliant can move forward knowing we could potentially retract our acceptance at a later time. 

Asking for Counselor's Recommendation

Here are instructions for how to ask the event applicant for their counselor's assessment for a Reliant program: This would typically be sent to a representative from the local church leadership that the program

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applicant is from, that would then meet with the

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applicant and give them this information to

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pass on to the counselor. 

The local church leadership would set up a meeting with the

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applicant and explain the following:

• Share with

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• the applicant that we are excited for him/her to have this opportunity.
• Discuss that we want to make

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• the program a success for them.
• Explain that there are

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• some condition(s) that he/she needs to meet in order to be accepted.
• Explain to him/her the needed

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• assessment from his/her counselor/therapist and how to

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• obtain that (see instructions below).
• Explain that we

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• will need to wait for the

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• collegiate reviewer to review the counselor's

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• assessment before we move forward.
• Explain to

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• them that if he/she is conditionally accepted, one of the conditions is generally to meet with a staff member for # of weekly meetings

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• for check-in, accountability, and to care for him/her.
• There may also be a request to continue counseling remotely with their counselor or to meet with a local counselor during the program.
• After the meeting, respond back to the

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• collegiate reviewer with how the meeting went, and if he/she

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• agrees to those condition(s).

Letter from Counselor/Therapist

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

CONDITIONS FOR SUICIDAL CONCERNS

• The most common condition for all applicants in the counselor review is to also ask them to meet with a staff member bi-weekly during the summer to help keep them accountable and to follow up with how they are doing.  
• For those participants that have severe emotional struggles we also suggest that a follow up takes place with the participant (preferable around 2 weeks before the event) to confirm that their condition has not negatively changed and to receive any updates to help us prepare to care for the participant better during the program. 
• We also ask the applicant to turn in a safety plan. 

Counseling during the program

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 meetings or phone calls. If the participant can continue meetings with their counselor over the summer we highly recommend that they continue meeting.  

Reliant's usual condition for any emotional and psychiatric concerns is to require the participant to meet with 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 is not a licensed counselor. 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 that they may need to contact law enforcement if ever such an occasion should arise.