Safer Illinois, Safer Community, COVID-19 testing for university family members
Does COVID-19 testing cover university family members?
Our university COVID-19 saliva test is now available for family and household members of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty, staff and students through SHIELD CU, a partnership program with OSF HealthCare. See more information about SHIELD CU here.
SHIELD CU details for university family members
- All household and family members of faculty, staff and students who are eight years old or older are eligible.
- Family members must download, sign up and use the Safer Community app to be tested and receive results.
- Family members must enter the UIN of their university sponsor (faculty, staff or student) when prompted in the Safer Community app. The sponsor must then verify the relationship using their Safer Illinois app. This must be done before testing. Read more about this here.
- The cost will be $10 per test administered to a family or household member. The total for all tests administered to all family members will be charged to the university sponsor once per month. Read more about this here.
- Family members can only be tested at select lines designated for SHIELD CU at the State Farm Center testing site.
- University family members testing will begin on Friday, April 2.
- An instructional/informational video has also been created to walk you through the process: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pv4uzfh0Tb_yM6-1IukNGK1JUxU0ttgL/view?usp=sharing
- View the Safer Community User Guide for University of Illinois Families and Households.
- Watch the Testing Process.
University family members are one of the first groups given the opportunity to use SHIELD CU, an exciting partnership with OSF HealthCare to bring the university-developed SHIELD ecosystem to the local community. SHIELD CU plans to expand testing soon to other community groups, including local schools.
Troubleshooting
Please note that we are still in early stages of the Safer Community App, and you may experience some difficulties with the enrollment process. Here are some ways to overcome known issues as we work to improve the process:
Passwords must use the following criteria:
- Must be 8 characters long
- Must contain a number
- Must contain a special character
- Must contain upper and lowercase letters
- There may be up to a 30 minute delay to receive the verification email needed to sign into a new account.
- There may be up to a 30 minute delay for the faculty, staff or student sponsor to receive the notification to verify a family member in their Safer Illinois app.If the sponsor does not receive a request to verify the family member in their Safer Illinois app after an hour, the family member should check to make sure the sponsor’s UIN was entered correctly. There will not be any sort of error message for an incorrect UIN.
An instructional/informational video has also been created to walk you through the process:
Testing, test results and the Safer Community app
Resources
- OSF HealthCare
- Champaign-Urbana Public Health District
- Shield CU COVID-19 Testing for Illinois Families
Questions
If you have any questions about testing for family and households, please email SHIELDcu@illinois.edu.
Questions about testing and results
- Visit osfhealthcare.org/shield-cu for additional information.
Testing, test results and the Safer Community app
Billing
- Email: bursarhelp@uillinois.edu
Other questions about Illinois household family member testing
- Email: shieldcu@illinois.edu