The mission of the University of San Francisco Counseling and Psychological Services is to provide students with mental health services that allow them to improve and maintain their mental well-being and to meet their educational, personal, emotional, and spiritual goals.  Our goal is to assist USF students’ learning by helping reduce psychological symptoms and developmental stressors, cope with difficult life events and balance academic and social life. CAPS accomplishes these functions by providing high-quality, time-effective and culturally sensitive counseling, consultation, outreach, and training.

Confidentiality Statement

Confidentiality is the key to our services. You have a legal right to privacy and can expect your contact with us to be kept private. Your written permission  must be obtained before CAPS will release information to anyone, with only limited legal and ethical exceptions. Counseling records are maintained separately from any other records of the University.

Goals Guiding our work

• Provide professional mental health services to enrolled students, including: individual, couples and group counseling, crisis response, consultation, brief assessment, and referrals that are accessible to and provide for the general well-being of all students.
• Provide appropriate referrals for students who may have concerns that are not within our scope of proficiency; or problems that may be chronic or severe in nature and may require more services than CAPS is capable of offering.
• Encourage self awareness, personal responsibility, and healthy interpersonal relationships within a diverse environment.
• Ensure confidentiality and privacy as mandated by state and federal laws.
• Provide prevention programming and consultation to students, faculty, staff, and families with the purpose of facilitating healthy development, wellness and psychological functioning.
• Ensure that all services provided are vital, current and consistent with the guidelines of professional organizations.
• Maintain positive and ongoing relationships with the campus and surrounding community, with an emphasis in establishing and sustaining liaisons with those groups who have regular contact with students.
• Provide continued professional and personal development opportunities to our staff, with the purpose of allowing counselors to find a sense of balance, which will, in turn, allow them to maintain a high level of work with clients.
• Train future professionals in a brief evidence-based, multiculturally focused treatment model that is directly applicable to college counseling.