Tips on Making Effective Referrals

• Inform yourself of campus resources thoroughly, paying particular attention to the name of contact people and the chain of command in various offices.  (Ultimately you will develop an invaluable sense of which people in each area are most helpful and responsive).  
   
• Keep a list of names, offices, and telephone numbers on hand for quick reference.
   
• When talking with students, pay particular attention to their expressed and implied needs.  Often students won't ask to be referred for help, but they very much need a referral.  For example, they may express anxiety about their financial affairs without asking for assistance, a referral to financial aid or student employment may be called for if you probe further.
   
• Do your best to find the right referral.  Students may sometimes focus their concerns in an area that is less crucial to their needs than another.  For example, they may express anxiety about whether the registrar will let them withdraw from a class late in the term. 
   
• Students are often uneasy about following through with a referral.  Try to make them comfortable with the idea, pointing out the friendliness, accessibility, and helpfulness of the people you are sending them to.  This task can be crucial in the case of faculty and upper-level administrator references, since students often find these people intimidating.  
   
• Try to keep the chain of referrals as simple as possible.  Often students will have to visit several offices to complete referral procedures.  Help students reduce the run-around by finding ways to eliminate steps.  Also work out with students a proper sequence of steps, so that they don't have to backtrack to accomplish their end goal.
   
• Help students draw up agendas for referrals.  Have them jot down (or jot down for them) crucial questions and procedures for getting the most of their visits with people to whom you send them.  Make notes about referrals, indicating what the referral was intended to accomplish, so that you can refresh yourself for future interviews.
   
• Facilitate the referrals by calling ahead, while the student is in your office.  Telephoning can be helpful in two ways: it can help you to be sure that you are sending students to the right people for help, and it can give you the opportunity to make an appointment for the students on the spot, which will dramatically improve the contact rates for referrals.
   
• When you make referrals, jot down notes in your advising files that will remind you to ask students on their next visit about the results of their contacts.  If students report that they haven't followed through, find out why not, and discuss the reasons.  See if you should make a different referral, or if you need to become more involved in ensuring contact.  Don't take the process over from your students, however, since it is their responsibility to see that their needs are met.
   
• Check your records ever so often to get a sense of the referrals you have made.  Student development is an ongoing process, and patterns of need and growth can often be discovered in the sequence of referrals you have made.  Need for further direction can often be discovered in the referrals you have already made.

Roundy, Jack.  "Tips on Making Effective Referrals in Academic Advising."  Academic Advising News, Vol. XIV No 2, April 1992, 2, 10.