Resources for Student Survivors
Find confidential support, understand your options, and take the next steps at your own pace.
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Getting Support
You have the right to choose what happens next — and no single path is right for everyone. Your options generally include:
- Talk to a confidential advocate at your campus or in the community. They can explain all your options without making any reports on your behalf.
- Get medical care — for injuries, emergency contraception, STI testing, or a forensic exam (also called a “rape kit”). In Illinois, you can have a forensic exam without involving police. Evidence is stored anonymously for up to 5 years while you decide.
- Access counseling through your campus counseling center or an off-campus therapist. No report required. Greenlight also provides 20 free sessions of therapy to college student survivors of sexual harm. Click here to fill out our online intake form.
- File a Title IX complaint with your school if you want the institution to investigate. This is separate from involving law enforcement.
- Report to law enforcement if you choose. You are never required to do so.
- Do nothing right now: you can take time to process before deciding anything. Resources will still be available to you later.
If you are in crisis and need help immediately:
Chicago Rape Crisis Line (24/7): 888-293-2080
National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 800-656-HOPE
24 Hour Sexual Assault Crisis Centers in Illinois (ICASA): Click here to find the closest to you
Yes, absolutely. Therapy and reporting are completely separate. You can work with a therapist, counselor, or advocate for weeks, months, or years without ever making a formal report to your school, the Title IX office, or law enforcement.
Most campus counseling centers offer confidential sessions. If you want to be certain, ask specifically: “Are you a confidential resource?” Therapists in private practice are bound by HIPAA and will not share your information without your written consent (except in very narrow safety exceptions they’ll explain upfront).
Confidential resources are people or organizations that can support you without sharing your information with your school’s administration, Title IX office, or law enforcement — unless you ask them to, or unless there’s an imminent safety risk.
On most Illinois campuses, confidential resources typically include:
- Licensed counselors and therapists at the campus counseling center
- Campus-based victim advocates (often housed in student wellness offices)
- Healthcare providers in student health centers
- Clergy or religious advisors (in some contexts)
- Off-campus hotlines and community-based advocates
Non-confidential resources — like most faculty, RAs, coaches, and Title IX coordinators — are typically “responsible employees” or “mandated reporters” who are required to share what you tell them with the Title IX office. You can still turn to them for support, but it’s important to know that a formal process may begin.
When in doubt, ask any helper directly: “Are you a confidential resource?” before sharing details.
Yes, and this is one of the most important things to know: you do not need to be certain, have a label, or use any particular word to access support.
Many survivors spend time questioning whether what happened “counts,” especially if it involved someone they knew, if they were drinking, if they didn’t physically fight back, or if their feelings have been mixed. These questions are normal and don’t change your right to support.
An advocate or counselor’s job is not to evaluate what happened, but rather to help you. You can say “I’m not sure how to describe it” and still receive full support. Nothing you share with a confidential resource will be used to judge you or determine whether what happened was “serious enough.”
A note on uncertainty: Healing doesn’t require a verdict. Many people find that talking to someone helps them make sense of their experience at their own pace, without pressure to categorize it.
Here’s what you can generally expect when you call a hotline or reach out to a campus advocate:
- You’ll be in control. You set the pace. You decide how much to share and what you want help with.
- You’ll be believed. Advocates are trained to listen without judgment or skepticism.
- You won’t be pushed. No one will pressure you to report, go to the hospital, or take any action you’re not ready for.
- You’ll get information. A good advocate helps you understand all your options so you can make informed decisions.
- Nothing happens without your consent. A confidential advocate cannot contact the police, your school, or your parents on your behalf without your permission.
If you’re nervous about calling, many services also offer text-based and chat options. RAINN’s online hotline at rainn.org/get-help offers a live chat that works exactly like a phone call — without speaking out loud.
Understanding Your Options
Title IX is a federal law requiring schools that receive federal funding to respond to reports of sexual harassment and assault. When you report to a school’s Title IX office, it initiates a formal institutional process — your school will investigate and take action if a violation is found. This can result in disciplinary action against a respondent, but the process also involves you in a more formal, documented way.
Confidential support (an advocate, therapist, or counselor) operates outside the Title IX system. Nothing you share is reported upward. You access care, information, and emotional support without triggering any institutional investigation.
These are not mutually exclusive — you can work with a confidential advocate and later decide to file a Title IX complaint, or you can use confidential support only. You’re not choosing between safety and privacy; you’re choosing which pathway fits your needs right now.
Most colleges designate many staff and faculty as “responsible employees” (sometimes called “mandatory reporters” under Title IX). If you disclose sexual misconduct to them, they are required to report it to the Title IX coordinator.
Responsible employees typically include:
- Professors and academic advisors
- Resident advisors (RAs) and housing staff
- Athletic coaches and trainers
- Student affairs and dean of students staff
- Campus security
- Club advisors and student organization supervisors
Most campuses do not require counselors, therapists, healthcare providers, or designated victim advocates to report. Always ask before disclosing: “Are you a confidential resource, or are you required to report?”
In most cases, no, especially if you are 18 or older and accessing confidential resources.
HIPAA protects the privacy of health and mental health records. If you’re being seen by a campus therapist or healthcare provider, they cannot share your information with your parents without your written consent.
FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) protects your educational records. Once you’re 18 or enrolled in college, your parents generally do not have access to your records, including any Title IX proceedings.
There are limited exceptions: if you are under 18, if there is a serious safety concern, or if your school’s billing goes through a family account. If you’re unsure about your specific situation, ask a confidential advocate before disclosing anything.
If you have concerns about insurance or billing exposure, advocates can help you identify care options that won’t generate claims or statements sent to a parent’s address.
At most Illinois colleges and universities, professors are responsible employees under Title IX, which means they are required to report what you share to the Title IX office. including your name and the name of the person you describe. They typically cannot promise to keep it confidential, even if they want to.
This does not necessarily mean an investigation will begin immediately, as schools handle reports differently, but a formal report will exist.
If you need to explain why you missed class or need an extension, you do not have to disclose the reason. You can simply say you’re dealing with a personal emergency. If you want academic accommodations, a campus advocate or the dean of students office can often help arrange them without requiring you to disclose specifics to your professor.
Confidential resources on campus vary by institution. Here are the most common ones and what they offer:
- Campus counseling/mental health center: Licensed therapists and counselors. Bound by professional confidentiality. Can provide individual therapy, crisis support, and referrals.
- Campus victim advocates: Trained specifically in trauma and survivor support. Usually confidential. Can help you navigate both on- and off-campus resources, accompany you to medical appointments or hearings, and help you understand your options.
- Student health services: Healthcare providers are bound by HIPAA. Can address physical health needs, provide emergency contraception, STI testing, and sometimes connect you with advocacy services.
- Off-campus community advocates and therapists: Completely independent of your school. Offer free, confidential support regardless of whether you’ve reported or plan to report. Greenlight therapy partners are examples of these confidential resources.
Additional Off-Campus Advocacy Resources in Chicago Include:
- Resilience: legal and medical advocacy for sexual assault, therapy, and support groups
- YWCA Metropolitan Chicago: sexual violence support services (SVSS), legal and medical advocacy, case management, individual & group therapy
- Center on Halsted: legal, medical and housing advocacy, as well as multiple forms of therapy for LGBTQ+ survivors
Interested in seeing additional community resources, or need help navigating them? Contact counseling@greenlightfamilyservices.org for additional assistance.
Therapy & Mental Health
Trauma-informed therapy is an approach where your therapist understands how trauma affects the mind and body, and structures every part of your care accordingly. All Greenlight partnering therapists utilize trauma-informed techniques. It includes the basic tenets of talk therapy and expands on them in several key ways ways:
- Safety first: Establishing a sense of physical and emotional safety is the foundation of every session.
- You’re in control: You decide what to discuss and when. A trauma-informed therapist never pushes you to revisit details before you’re ready.
- No re-traumatization: The goal is healing, not requiring you to repeatedly relive the event. Modalities like EMDR, Trauma-focused CBT, and somatic approaches work with trauma without requiring full narrative retelling.
- Whole-person focus: The therapist recognizes how trauma shows up in your body, relationships, sleep, and daily life, in addition to the cognitive effects of trauma.
After sexual trauma, people experience a wide range of reactions, all of which are completely normal. You might feel:
- Emotional numbness: this is a common protective response
- Intrusive memories, flashbacks, or nightmares
- Hypervigilance: being on alert, startling easily, feeling unsafe in spaces that used to feel normal
- Avoidance: of places, people, conversations, or even feelings associated with the experience
- Difficulty concentrating: this can significantly affect academic performance
- Changes in relationships: withdrawing from friends, difficulty with intimacy, or shifts in trust
- Physical symptoms: sleep disruption, appetite changes, fatigue, unexplained pain
- Shame, self-blame, or guilt
These reactions can show up immediately or months later.They are the mind and body’s attempts to cope with an overwhelming experience.
Therapy with a trauma-trained clinician can help you:
- Process the event and its aftermath at a pace that feels safe
- Reduce symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and shame
- Rebuild a sense of safety and control in your daily life
- Understand your trauma responses
- Work through relationship changes and trust challenges
- Develop coping strategies for triggering situations
- Reconnect with parts of your life and identity that feel disrupted
This is one of the most common barriers to seeking support. Many survivors compare their experience to what they think “real” assault looks like, or minimize what happened because of who was involved, whether there was force, or how they responded in the moment. These preconceived notions of what sexual harm “should” consist of are often based on outdated cultural norms rather than the reality of what trauma looks like.
There is no threshold of severity you need to meet to deserve care. Therapists who specialize in sexual trauma are familiar with this kind of self-questioning. What matters is your experience, and your healing journey should not exist in comparison to anyone else’s.
Managing trauma and academic demands at the same time can feel daunting as a college student. Some things that can help include:
- Academic accommodations: Through the Title IX office or disability services (without disclosing specifics), you may be able to get extensions, incomplete (I) grade status, or reduced course loads.
- Housing changes: If your assault involved someone in your housing, you can request a room reassignment under Title IX regardless of whether you file a formal complaint.
- Scheduling flexibility: Build recovery time into your week and allow yourself plenty of time to heal, rest and process.
- Peer support: Some campuses have survivor-led support groups that can reduce isolation without requiring formal treatment.
You are allowed to prioritize your safety and wellbeing without sacrificing your education. These are not competing needs.
Graduate students face a distinctive set of challenges after sexual harm. Many graduate programs are smaller in size, and tightly knit student cohorts or research labs make the dynamics of reporting more complex.
Key things to know:
- You have the same Title IX rights as undergraduates. Assaults by faculty, advisors, or other students are covered.
- Retaliation is prohibited. If you report and experience retaliation (losing funding, being removed from projects, negative references), that is itself a Title IX violation.
- You can access confidential support outside of the university
- Graduate student unions at some Illinois schools (UChicago, Northwestern, UIC) may have advocates or grievance processes outside the university’s formal Title IX system.
RAINN has specific resources for graduate students at rainn.org/get-help. Additionally, Greenlight’s counseling services are available to college students of all ages, regardless of degree level.
Helping a Friend
The most important thing you can do is follow the survivor’s lead. Support that feels helpful to you may not match what they need. Some principles:
- DO: believe them. Saying “I believe you” is simple and powerful. Don’t ask questions that second-guess their account.
- DO: let them be in control. Ask what they need rather than assuming. “What would be most helpful right now?” goes a long way.
- DON’T: pressure them to report. Their decisions about reporting belong to them. Expressing what you think they “should” do can create more harm.
- DO: stay connected. Your consistent presence matters more than knowing the right words.
- DO: offer practical help. Walking them to appointments, bringing food, or sitting with them in silence can all be meaningful.
- DO: take care of yourself too. Supporting a survivor can affect your own wellbeing. Seek your own support or counseling services if needed
Even with the best intentions, some common responses can be unhelpful or harmful. Try to avoid:
- “Why didn’t you fight back / leave / scream?”: People respond to trauma in ways they can’t fully control, each of which are completely valid and natural.
- “You should report it.”: Reporting decisions are deeply personal and complex. Pressure to report can feel like another loss of control.
- “At least it wasn’t worse.”: Minimizing their experience invalidates their pain.
- “I can’t believe it was him/her/them.”: Centering the perpetrator’s reputation is inappropriate, and puts the survivor in a position of defending what happened.
- “What were you wearing / drinking / doing?”: Responsibility lies with the person who caused harm, not the survivor.
If you’re not sure what to say, silence and presence are completely adequate. Affirmations such as “I’m here. I love you. You don’t have to say anything” are more than enough.
Living with someone who has experienced sexual trauma brings its own unique complexities as a supporter. Some tips include:
- Respect their pace. They may need quiet, or they may need distraction. Ask rather than assume.
- Maintain normalcy when they want it. Sometimes survivors prefer to continue the rhythms of daily life to feel grounding.
- Be mindful of triggers. Ask gently if there are things, such as movies, music, or conversation topics, that they’d like to avoid for now.
- Don’t share their story. Even with mutual friends. Confidentiality is theirs to control.
- If they want to move out: Help them know they have options. Title IX offices can facilitate room changes without requiring full disclosure.
Acting without the knowledge or permission of the survivor, even with the best intentions, can be harmful. This can replicate the loss of control that trauma itself causes.
Helpful support is collaborative:
- Offer options, don’t make decisions for them
- Ask before sharing their story with anyone, including other friends
- If you’re concerned about safety, express that concern directly to the survivor
- Trust that they know what they need, even if their choices are different from what you would choose
Supporting a survivor from a place of respect for their autonomy is one of the best practices as a peer.
If someone you care about seems to be struggling, but is hesitant to seek help, there are gentle ways to open that door:
- Share specific resources without pressure
- Offer accompaniment: This can look like going with them to an appointment or looking up resources together.
- Acknowledge their hesitation: “I understand you’re not ready to do anything formal. You don’t have to.”
- Name what you’re observing without diagnosing: “I’ve noticed you seem really tired lately and I care about you.”
- Be patient. Someone who isn’t ready today may become ready in two months. Planting a seed matters.
Campus & Student Life
Navigating Trauma While in College
Trauma can affect concentration, memory, attendance, and motivation. You may find that symptoms emerge during high-stress periods like finals, or that certain campus locations become difficult to navigate. Connect with your counseling center early; many campuses have expedited access for crisis situations. The Dean of Students office can serve as an intermediary with professors without requiring you to disclose your situation in detail.
Survivors and Academic Accommodations
You may be eligible for academic accommodations through your school’s Title IX office, disability services, or Dean of Students. Importantly, you may not need to disclose specific details of what happened to receive some accommodations. An advocate can help you identify the least-disclosure path to getting the support you need academically.
Greek Life and Survivor Support
Fraternity and sorority settings can present unique complications — including social pressure to minimize or ignore harm involving members, loyalty dynamics that affect disclosure, and events where alcohol-facilitated assault is more common. Title IX protections apply equally to Greek life contexts. If you experienced assault at a Greek event or by a member, your school’s Title IX office still has jurisdiction. National Greek organizations also often have their own conduct processes and victim resources.
Healing in Small Campus Communities
On small campuses, privacy feels harder to protect, as you may be in closer proximity with the perpetrator. In these environments, connecting with off-campus resources (like ICASA member centers, the YWCA or Greenlight counseling) can feel safer than campus-based services where confidentiality might feel less certain. The anonymity of larger cities like Chicago can also be a resource if your school is nearby.
Support for Commuter Students
Commuter students often have less contact with campus-based services and may find that campus support hours don’t align with their schedules. Key strategies: identify off-campus resources near your home or workplace, look for telehealth therapy options through services like Greenlight counseling, and use RAINN’s online chat option which is available 24/7 without a phone call. Greenlight counseling also partners with therapists who offer weekend/evening availability for students with busier schedules.
Survivor Support for International Students
International students may face additional concerns: fear that reporting will affect visa status, cultural frameworks around sexual harm that differ from U.S. legal definitions, language barriers, and the absence of family networks who understand the U.S. system. Your immigration status is not at risk from accessing support services or filing a Title IX complaint. The U Visa (for crime victims) may be available to undocumented students or those on other visas, and an advocate familiar with immigration law can help explain options. Additionally, Greenlight’s counseling services are available to students regardless of citizenship status as long as they are attending school in Illinois. Our network includes several multilingual therapists for students that prefer to seek counseling in a language other than English.
Research & Reports
Illinois is home to over 200 higher education institutions, ranging from large public research universities to small private colleges and community colleges. Access to dedicated, on-campus survivor support varies enormously. Research by ICASA and national organizations consistently shows that while large universities (University of Illinois system, Northwestern, UChicago, Loyola) typically have dedicated victim advocates and 24-hour crisis services, many smaller and community colleges offer limited or no in-house advocacy. Community college students, who represent a significant portion of Illinois’s student population, are particularly underserved. Luckily, several campus-wide prevention and advocacy programs, such as City Colleges of Chicago’s project SAFE and Northeastern Illinois University’s NEIU K(No)w more are focused on expanding services and education for victims of gender-based violence.
The Clery Act requires institutions to publish annual security reports (ASRs) including statistics on sexual offenses. Illinois data from Department of Education Clery disclosures shows:
- Reported rates of rape and fondling vary dramatically across institution size and type, with smaller schools often showing near-zero figures that likely reflect under-reporting rather than low incidence.
- Institutions with active bystander intervention programs and robust confidential support show higher reporting rates — a sign survivors feel safer coming forward
- Community colleges are notably absent from many published analyses due to differences in data collection and lower Title IX office infrastructure.
ASRs are publicly available on each school’s website under “Campus Safety” and at the Department of Education’s Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool.
A 2022 survey of Illinois colleges by ICASA found that fewer than half of Illinois institutions had a dedicated on-campus confidential victim advocate. Access to confidential campus counseling was more common but still limited at many smaller schools by session caps (often 6–10 sessions per year) and waitlists of 2–6 weeks. Off-campus ICASA member centers fill critical gaps but face their own funding constraints and uneven geographic distribution, with services concentrated in Chicago and collar counties and thinner coverage in Central and Southern Illinois. This makes confidential support resources such as Greenlight counseling and the Chicago YWCA even more critical in addressing these service gaps.
Key gaps identified across research on Illinois and national campus survivor support include:
- Community college gap: Community colleges enroll over 40% of Illinois undergraduates but are significantly underrepresented in Title IX infrastructure and survivor advocacy capacity.
- Graduate student gap: Graduate students are frequently excluded from research on campus sexual assault despite facing distinct risk factors.
- Multilingual and culturally responsive services: Very few Illinois campuses offer survivor support in languages other than English, or have advocates trained in culturally specific responses to sexual harm.
- Apna Ghar: Crisis support, shelter/housing, advocacy and therapeutic resources for immigrant and refugee survivors
- Arab American Family Services: Advocacy & crisis support for Muslim and Arab survivors
- KAN-WIN: Legal advocacy, crisis support, shelter options and support groups for Asian American survivors
- Mujeres Latinas en Accion: Linguistically and Culturally specific legal advocacy, crisis support, and counseling for Latina survivors of sexual and domestic violence
- SHALVA: Religiously and culturally specific crisis support, advocacy and therapeutic resources for Jewish survivors of domestic violence
- LGBTQ+ survivor support: Most campus services are not specifically designed to address the needs of LGBTQ+ survivors, who experience sexual violence at higher rates and often face additional barriers to disclosure. Improving these service gaps has been a recent long-term focus of Chicago area advocates, and campuses such as Northwestern and University of Chicago have LGBTQ+ specific resources that are growing with each academic year. Greenlight also partners with many therapists that identify as part of the Queer community and provide specific, tailored support for these students.
- 24/7 on-campus access: The majority of campus-based services operate standard business hours. Evenings, weekends, and university breaks leave gaps that off-campus hotlines partially fill. Some Chicago campuses have developed their own 24 hour survivor support hotlines (DePaul, Dominican, Northeastern Illinois, UIC, University of Chicago), but these resources remain limited.
Research-backed best practices, as identified by organizations including RAINN, and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC), include:
- Dedicated confidential advocates with campus-specific knowledge, available outside business hours
- Separation of advocacy from adjudication: advocates who serve survivors only, not institutional interests
- Trauma-informed training for all campus staff who may receive disclosures (not just Title IX coordinators)
- Accessible intake — multiple channels (phone, text, chat, walk-in) without appointment barriers
- Survivor-centered policy that prioritizes confidentiality, autonomy, and choice at every step
- Coordinated community response that connects campus resources with off-campus ICASA centers, hospitals, and legal advocates
Full reports are available from NSVRC at nsvrc.org and from ICASA at icasa.org.
Additional Resources
Greenlight counseling is not a crisis service. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or suicidal ideation, please contact one of the crisis resources below:
National Resources
Contact Greenlight Counseling
Email: counseling@greenlightfamilyservices.org
Call: 773-750-7077 (Mondays-Fridays, during business hours)