Employee Assistance & Counseling Center

Individual, couple and family therapy is available by appointment only.

To schedule an intake screening appointment, please click on the appropriate paperwork link to the right and complete the intake forms online. If this is an emergency, defined as suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts, abuse, and/or domestic violence, please call 911, or one of the other emergency numbers listed in the information box.*

Once we have received your completed paperwork, we will call you within two business days to schedule your 30-minute phone intake appointment. Please be sure to provide a phone number where you can be reached during normal business hours. All parties who are age 14 and older and will be involved in counseling must be available for the scheduled phone intake appointment. If you have not received a call from the EACC within two business days of submitting your paperwork, please call the EACC at 205-934-2281.

Couples and Families: People age 14 and older who will be involved in counseling must complete and submit the Intake Form for Couples/Family for themselves. Parents/guardians must complete and submit an Intake Form for children under the age of 14.

You will talk to a counselor for 15-30 minutes. The counselor will review our policies and procedures. The counselor will ask some questions, review any pertinent information provided in your intake paperwork, and ask you what your goal for therapy is. The counselor will then decide on the most appropriate way to address your concerns. This may involve individual, couple, family, or group counseling, referral to a physician or nurse practitioner, and/or a referral to a counselor in the community.

If you haven’t attended an appointment with your EACC counselor within the past 12 months, you will be required to go through the intake phone screening process. If you have been in counseling within the last 12 months, please call 205-934-2281 if you would like to schedule an appointment with your current counselor. If you would like to change counselors and have been attending counseling within the past 12 months, please call 205-934-2281 and ask to be reassigned to a new counselor.

Phone intake hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

If you are not available within 10 minutes of the start of your scheduled phone intake appointment, your intake appointment will need to be rescheduled to another date and time.

If you become ill or have a conflicting obligation and must miss an appointment, you should call the EACC at 205-934-2281 as far in advance as possible to reschedule. If you do not show up for two appointments in a row without calling, you will be placed on a waiting list for the next appointment, typically about six weeks.

If you have never been in counseling, you may feel nervous and not know what to expect. Most people, however, are surprised at how comfortable the counseling experience is when they are working with a counselor at the EACC. Counseling typically involves talking about concerns to build your insights and provide new perspectives, teaching coping and wellness skills, providing information about mental health and treatment options, and helping you set and work toward goals for change.

Clients experiencing a mental health emergency or crisis should call 911 or go to the UAB Emergency Department (ED), the UAB Highlands ED, or the nearest ED for immediate assistance. You may also access these emergency resources.

• Birmingham Crisis Center: 205-323-7777
• 24hr Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
• 24hr National Hopeline Network: 1-800-784-2433
• Crisis Text Line: Text “UAB” to 741741
• Alabama Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-650-6522