RSS 1.0Employee Assistance Archive School of Social Work
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The University of Maryland School of Social Work – the only social work program with a dedicated Employee Assistance (EA) curriculum as part of the larger MSW program – hosts the Employee Assistance Digital Archive.
The Employee Assistance Digital Archive is a free, publicly accessible site where EA professionals can post original works, historical documents or other related papers. The intent of the Archive is to preserve important historical documents in the EA field as well as to provide a national depository for all significant articles in the field.
Please visit our Employee Assistance Digital Archive Homepage to learn about how you can submit and use the Archive.
Recent Submissions
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Managed Behavioral Health Care: Summary Briefing of Performance AuditsAs complaints from employees and practitioners mounted, a number of employers have enlisted outside consultants to conduct performance audits of their managed behavioral health care providers. All employers, including the Federal Government, have compelling reasons for concern with the performance of health care systems. In addition to the hundreds of billions they spend each year on care of their own employees, through taxes and cost shifting they also finance a large portion of the care for added millions of Americans who have no insurance. The following outlines the findings of audits of MBHOs conducted by J. Wrich & Associates, Inc., a Chicago based consulting firm with nearly 30 years experience in health systems performance. The audits summarized here were commissioned by employers and are of MBHOs which provide service to more than forty percent of the 160 million Americans enrolled in such plans. The methodology incorporated both direct and indirect research methods to review two major categories of information: 1) The Providers Documentation and 2) Patient Files.
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EASNA Strategic Plans 2005 & 2009EASNA was founded in 1985 as a response to the changing face of EAPs and the need for an organization that met both Canadian and American professional development needs. The organization’s goal was defined "to provide a leadership role in the encouragement of quality EAP services through the development of Program Standards and an Accreditation process." In 2007 EASNA changed its focus to encourage more organizational members, while continuing to welcome individual members. Organizational members pay one fee but all of their employees may have access to the Members Only website. Programs and events are now developed with this structure in mind, as is this (2009) strategic plan. The last strategic plan was completed in 2004 for the 2005-2008 time period.
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The Benefit to Cost Impact of EAPsMany organizations have estimated the benefit to cost ratio of their EAP. An important factor in developing such ratios is the cost and effectiveness of mental health and chemical dependency treatment. If such treatment is overpriced or ineffective, the BCR will be adversely affected. Besides treatment costs, the formula also includes the cost of the EAP’s operation plus cost of time off to get treatment versus the cost of sick leave pre/post program use.
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Managed Care: Implications for Best PracticeThis is a presentation given in Montreal, Canada in 2005 to the International Conference for Advancement of Private Practice of Clinical Social Work on the topic of Ethical Concerns in the field and how Managed Care came into existence and how it has impacted the Behavioral Health field.
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The Comorbid Impact of Alcoholism Treatment on Medical Surgical Disorders And The Benefit to Cost Impact of EAPsBehavioral health care costs represent roughly 10 percent of total health care expenditures with the other 90 percent expended on medical surgical disorders. In conducting PARETO studies of medical surgical claims, our associates have consistently found that 15 percent of the enrollees represent approximately 80 percent of the claims expenditures including 5 percent who consume 40 percent of the expenditures. It is estimated that chronic behavioral health problems, largely undiagnosed and untreated, are involved in 70 percent of these cases. This means that if behavioral health issues were totally absent in the remaining 85 percent of claimants, they would have a bearing on more than 50 percent of total health expenditures. Case records indicate that the single most frequent behavioral health problem is substance use disorder.
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Trainer’s Guide to Adolescent Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT)As key members of an adolescent’s healthcare team, practitioners in the fields of nursing, social work, medicine, and interprofessional care have an obligation to help prevent and reduce substance use and identify mental health risks with their young patients. Asking about substance use and discussing its impact can prevent many harmful effects to the adolescent’s developing brain and potential future. Asking about mental health and identifying risk early can prevent delay of receiving services and supports. Current and future generations of healthcare professionals need to learn the skills to have these essential conversations with adolescents and young adults about substance use and mental health. The Adolescent SBIRT Trainer’s Guide is designed to assist in the dissemination of an adolescent SBIRT training by providing trainers and educators with minute-by-minute instructions for delivering training using the Adolescent SBIRT Slide Deck and the Adolescent SBIRT Learner’s Guide.
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Navigating Threat Assessment in the Workplace: the Role of EAPs in Workplace SafetyAs the number and frequency of workplace violence incidents have steadily increased over the past several years, the risk of workplace violence has become a real danger that challenges employees and organizations to assess and manage on a regular basis. Within some industries, the daily threat of experiencing some form of workplace violence is all too real for many employees. In addition, recognizing the signs of potential threats to workplace safety can often be confusing and complex. Due to their unique position within organizations, EAPs have opportunities to assist with assessing, intervening, and preventing incidents of workplace violence. EAPs also have opportunities to support an organization’s effort at building a culture of workplace violence prevention, including the formation of supportive safety policies and participating on threat assessment and management teams. Learning Objectives: 1). Participants will gain knowledge of the basic principles of threat assessment when evaluating a potential risk of workplace violence. 2). Participants will demonstrate the ability to identify critical warning signs indicative of potential workplace violence. 3). Participants will explore relevant clinical and organizational interventions that EAPs can utilize as a means of supporting efforts of workplace safety and violence prevention.
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The State of Women at Work and How EA Professionals Can HelpThe World Economic Forum publishes an annual report on disparities around gender at work titled The Global Gender Gap Report. Its findings from 2022 are quite disturbing. Gender parity is not recovering; it’s getting worse. According to the report, it will take another 132 years to close the gender gap globally. Workforce outcomes for women run the risk of backsliding even further. This is a real crisis. You might ask yourself, “How can this be?” Haven’t we made progress in this area? Why are we going backward? Sadly, women’s representation in the corporate world hasn’t improved much over the past few years. Many companies report being highly committed to gender diversity, but that commitment is not translated into meaningful progress. Not only does this hurt women, but it also impacts the company’s bottom line. Many studies suggest that more women at the top reflect better bottom-line financial results. McKinsey research has consistently found that companies in the top quartile for women on executive teams were more likely to have above-average profitability. It’s one of the top findings of McKinsey’s report they co-created with LeanIn.Org. To offer a grimmer picture, the recent Women in the Workplace report analyzed pipeline and HR data from 279 companies in North America and more than 13 million workers. They noted some glaring facts about the state of women: ● Men hold 62% of manager positions to women’s 38% ● Women are less likely to have access to senior leaders ● Women are twice as likely to be mistaken for more junior employees and more likely to deal with discrimination ● 35% of women have experienced sexual harassment at work ● Unlike popular opinion, women negotiate for raises and promotions as often as men
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Virginia State Opioid Response Grant Annual Report 2021-2022About the State Opioid Response Grant The State Opioid Response (SOR) grant is distributed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS). Since 2018, the grant has been distributed to 40 Community Services Boards (CSBs) and other grant partners to address opioid and stimulant use across Virginia. OMNI Institute works with DBHDS as an evaluation partner and created this report to highlight results from the fourth year of the SOR grant (October 2021 through September 2022). As shown in the visual below, DBHDS supports several state and local initiatives across the continuum of care to respond to needs and challenges related to opioid and stimulant use disorders and overdose deaths. This report is organized by the four core areas of the continuum of care which DBHDS is funding: community-based prevention, harm reduction, treatment services, and peer support services.
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HOLDING IT TOGETHER: UK MENTAL WELLBEING AND THE ROLE OF EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMMESThis is the stage we’ve reached, where figures relating to the mental health of the UK workforce are shocking but also unsurprising. The two factors that lead to the greatest stress among people are uncertainty and lack of control. And that’s what we have plenty of. Energy prices and the cost-of-living crisis. What’s happening with the war in Ukraine. Political instability. Worries about recession and jobs. The growth in the use of EAPs highlighted in this report comes with at least one element of good news to it. It means many more employers have been taking employee health and well-being more seriously; and, that more employees have been willing to make use of an EAP, that there’s trust in service providers. Most worrying about the EAPA UK figures is the number of employees with severe depression, in crisis situations, turning to their EAP. It’s critical that the Government, the NHS and other healthcare stakeholders, understand the role the EAP industry has been playing in supporting mental health, providing immediate access to counselling and professional assessment for millions of people every year. So not a matter of an employee benefit affecting the few, but a significant role in dealing with an urgent and long- term issue for society. Given the limitations to NHS resources and both the scale and complexity of dealing with people’s mental wellbeing, more thought and discussion is needed around the place of EAPs — including how else they can help. Maybe there’s a need for extensions to EAP services, to ensure there’s provision for longer-term counselling programmes through to recovery. The EAP sector has coped this far with the giant swell of demand and more serious cases, through training and recruitment initiatives, more online services and apps. But neither employers nor the UK as a whole can afford to see EAPs become overwhelmed.
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Measuring Resilience for Individuals and Organizations: Research ReviewEmployers and EAPs are intrigued by the concept of resilience and the role it may play in promoting employee well-being and business success. Resilience has most often been measured at the individual level as one's ability to recover from stress and develop protective factors in oneself and in the social environment. Over 20 self-report scales exist to measure personal resilience in general and over 10 other scales specific to the work context. Work resilience can be measured at four levels: the individual worker; work teams; leadership; and overall work culture. Trainings designed to enhance resilience have been successfully conducted in many applied contexts involving children in schools, employees and leaders in workplaces, soldiers in the military, and athletes in high-performance sports. Other research has examined the additional role of social and community level influences that can impair or improve resilience responses among individuals and entire groups of people. More innovative group and organizational level trainings are recommended for building workplace resilience. Resilient employees and organizations not only adapt and overcome but they also can learn to thrive by making gradual changes in managerial styles, work processes, company policies and programs, and work culture that prevent the conditions that can cause stress and trauma. These work-focused approaches can be added to a full-service employee assistance program. Examples include as skill-building for individuals to become a resilience coach, trainings designed for work teams, and organizational level stress and resiliency assessments and consulting. Examples of resilience measures and providers are provided.
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Repository for the Ages: 10th Anniversary for the International Employee Assistance Digital ArchiveThe International Employee Assistance Digital Archive, housed at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Social Work, Health Sciences and Human Services Library is celebrating its 10 year anniversary in 2023. This open-access, free, global repository has become a cornerstone for the EA and broader behavioral health fields. This article provides the history of the Archive and how it has grown to over 190,000 downloads from 10+ countries. Read about this important resource for the field and how to get involved in continuing to grow and promote the Archive and the EA field.
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Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health (2022)Taylor & Francis Group, 2022
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EAPs: Removing the margin of error in mental healthOne silver lining of the pandemic has been the growing acceptance of mental health care by the public. Thanks to COVID, this national health crisis was forced into the spotlight as heightened anxiety, social isolation, provider shortages, and other pressures overburdened a system that was already struggling. Fortunately, these concerns resulted in action. On the public side, the federal government introduced a sweeping plan for behavioral health care to the tune of $51.7B over 10 years. In addition, states like Massachusetts are now funding programs to divert emergency room visitors with mental health issues to community mental health centers. On the private side, the focus on workplace mental health has been dramatically sharpened. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are being bolstered significantly while new telehealth players are rushing in to exploit the growing market demand. (Mostly venture-backed, these splashy new mental health players raised over $6B in VC funds during the pandemic alone.) While EAPs and health plans have long been central to workplace mental health, these digital disruptors are adding a third access point.
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How to Respond to Drinking on the JobWhen an employer suspects a worker has been drinking on the job or is intoxicated at work, it should respond to ensure the safety of the employee, their co-workers and customers. That response may entail doing a quick investigation and having a conversation with the employee, along with possibly sending them for breath alcohol testing and escorting them home. Discipline can range from a final written warning to suspension without pay to immediate termination, said Debra Friedman, an attorney with Cozen O'Connor in Philadelphia. Investigate and Develop an Initial Response - Employers should first confirm the suspicion that an employee has been drinking, said James Reidy, an attorney with Sheehan Phinney in Manchester, N.H. Is the suspicion based on rumor? Is it based on the employee's attendance after a long weekend? Is it based on observation by others, such as a co-worker seeing an employee drinking in a car, on break or at lunch? Is it because of the smell of alcohol on or around the employee? Or is the employee slurring words, having difficulty with motor skills or falling asleep at work? Employers need to make sure there's not some other reason, such as a reaction to medication or a medical condition such as Parkinson's disease or narcolepsy. "While drinking on the job or coming in to work under the influence of alcohol is never acceptable, it is more of a problem in some jobs—for example, truck driver, pilot, school bus driver [and] forklift operator," Reidy said.
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A Potential Downside to Remote Work? Higher Rates of DepressionRemote and hybrid work have become highly desired workplace perks, with plenty of research showing their advantages. In fact, employees who work remotely often say they're happier, more productive and more likely to stay with their employer. But new research shows there's at least one drawback to these arrangements: Remote and hybrid workers tend to experience higher rates of mental health issues. Fully remote (40 percent) and hybrid work (38 percent) are associated with an increased likelihood of anxiety and depression symptoms compared to in-person work (35 percent), according to an analysis by the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI), an Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit research organization. For its report, IBI analyzed data from the Household Pulse Survey, an online resource created by the U.S. Census Bureau to determine how households were impacted by the pandemic. IBI partnered with Elevance Health (formerly Anthem) to analyze claims data related to mental health. Although there isn't a massive disparity between in-person and remote workers' likelihood of depression and anxiety, it's an important difference that employers would be wise to pay attention to, researchers said. "The differences in prevalence of anxiety and depression symptoms between hybrid, remote and onsite are statistically significant. Our research illustrates that remote work may not be the ideal solution for every employee," said Candace Nelson, director of research at IBI, adding that more exploration of the topic is needed.
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EASNA Code of EthicsThis Code is designed to provide a set of high standards for EAP practitioners and encourage conduct that will enhance the EA field’s mission, reinforce its values, and promote quality EA services.
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EASNA Standards and Accreditation History: SUMMARYThe purpose of this brief article is to document a significant series of events in the field of Employee Assistance. The intent is to recount, from collective memory, just how the EASNA accreditation process and standards, evolved.
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THE EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA EAP PROGRAM STANDARDS, rev 1998 - PART 1Founded in 1989 at a meeting of employee assistance professionals in Chicago, EASNA serves as an accrediting agent for employee assistance programs in North America. To do this, it provides an independent judgment which confirms whether or not a program is achieving its objectives and meeting the high professional standards set by the field. Launched in 1990 and updated in 1993, these Standards were again updated in January 1998 to reflect state-of-the-art refinements and additions to the original accreditation document.
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EAPA Code of EthicsThis Employee Assistance Professionals Association (EAPA) Code of Ethics provides guidance regarding ethical conduct for employee assistance professionals (hereafter, EA professionals), and it defines the standards of ethical behavior for the benefit of their clients, both individual employees and employer organizations. This code will apply to the EA professional’s activities and relationships with employees, employers, unions, employee assistance colleagues, professionals from other disciplines, the local community and society as a whole.
