Urgent Services

POLICY: The Company strives to provide immediate service to clients experiencing acute emotional distress during office hours. Recognizing that the Company has limited capacity to respond to such emergencies, staff will involve community resources (e.g., 911, mental health outreach teams) as required and will communicate clearly the limitations of Company resources.

DEFINITIONS:

Urgent Service: A system of "on-call" staff to ensure immediate response to emergency or urgent service requests during open office hours. No support is offered after-hours (including holidays), although clients telephoning the Company after hours are referred to 24/7 community resources.

PROCEDURES:

Assessing the Urgency of the Situation and Calling the Duty Day Worker:

1. When a client is upset and requests immediate consultation with a counselor, the staff involved will evaluate from the client's voice, appearance, or the content of the communication whether the situation is of an immediate serious nature. If it is apparent that a client is at risk of harming themselves or others, please refer to the Abuse Reporting and Documentation Policy for guidance on how to proceed.
2. If there is any doubt about the severity of the situation, the counselor should be called.
3. If the client insists on talking to a counselor, or the support staff is convinced by the client's voice, appearance, or the content of the communication that the situation is of an immediate serious nature, a counselor must be involved as soon as possible.