Employee Assistance Programming has evolved from a mechanism of social control to a major force for heatlh promotion. The field offers great potential for helping to build healthier communities of workers and families, in addition to helping individual workers who may see themselves, or be seen by others, as people with problems. Wellness and Work: Employee Assistance Programming in Canada provides a clear vision for employee assistance programming. The book is divided into five sections: (1) evolution, (2) structure, (3) practice, (4) case studies, and (5) creating wellness. In this historical, theoretical, and practice-oriented collection of original articles, both student and practitioner will trace the growth of this burgeoning field of practice. An informative and useful book for the practitioner and visionary alike, Wellness and Work will be an essential addition to the libraries of helping professionals and service delivery organizations.

Changes over the past decade have produced many promising trends in workplace mental health, although certain problems remain. That is the consensus of a recent research project that examined the evolution of workplace mental health policies and strategies in Canada between 2007 and 2017. The study focused on the five areas of legal advances, shifts in business priorities, changes in education and training, media trends, and research priorities.

This talk reviews a recent research project that examined the evolution of workplace mental health policies and strategies in Canada.

Despite a history stretching back to the 1800s, little empirical information has been published on Canadian employee assistance programs (EAPs); in fact an extensive literature review yielded only 36 articles pertaining to Canadian EAPs. The data were categorized into three groups: 1) problem profiles, 2) utilization rates, and 3) program outcomes. The data were limited, not only by their relative scarcity, but also due to a lack of uniformity of terminology and data collection techniques. While the existing information highlights the need for systematic data collection, it does provide the beginnings of a database on Canadian EAPs.

This Canadian Public Service Employee Assistance Program (EAP) was initiated in 1990, and over the course of the past two decades since its implementation great changes have occurred in the public service and in EAP. In response a comprehensive process evaluation was conducted to determine if the current mandate, objectives, services, and processes were still meeting the needs of employees and if the EAP had the capacity to meet the future needs of the employees and organization. A mixed methods data collection approach was used in the evaluation including a comparative best practice literature review, a review of program utilization data, an online survey of employees and managers across the entire public service system, and a series of qualitative interviews with program stakeholders, members of the EAP Advisory Committee, EAP counselors, and employees who had used the program. As well a review of the current governance model and organization structure was undertaken. The evaluation data indicated that the existing EAP program was well integrated into the organization, well utilized, and generated high ratings of user satisfaction and helpfulness. Its governance structure included involvement and input from all key public sector stakeholders including the various public service unions. However, several areas for enhancement were also discovered specifically in terms of revising the EAP policy, providing 24-hour service and the need to further increase the program profile and visibility across the broad public sector.As well, it was assessed that additional resources would have to be allocated if the EAP staff were to fully address worksite education, early intervention, prevention, and wellness promotion to the extent desired by the stakeholders.

A follow-up to Csiernik and Darnell’s (2010) exploratory study of Canadian EAP affiliates involved a convenience sample of 145 members of the Ontario Association of Social Workers who had on average 23.5 years of clinical experience and 11.5 years of EAP experience. Similar themes discovered issues found in the initial study were reported including: a lack of training or support when first hired and afterwards, not being allowed to inform clients that there was a ceiling on sessions allowed, having to request permission to allow seefor a case to proper case closure, not being able to continue to work with clients even if the client requested ongoing service and inadequate remuneration. However, there were also positive themes that arose including regular supervision for some affiliates, a range of interesting cases, freedom of hours, ability to build or supplement other parts of their private practice and working with a population that otherwise would not have accessed counselling services. What is evident is that several substantive dichotomies exist in the EAP field and that not only do future affiliates need to be educated on the strengths and limits of this practice domain but so do those responsible for procuring services for their workforces.

This is a literature review article. It highlights the epidemiological prevalence rate data for mental health and substance disorders from the US, Canada, Australia, Europe and globally. I also describe how the workplace can both hurt and help employees. The growth of employee assistance programs (EAP) globally is noted, including key trends in program use and global evidence documenting the effectiveness of brief counseling on workplace outcomes (particularly for reducing employee presenteeism). Finally, 21 leading organizations are profiled that are active in supporting workplace mental health in different parts of the world and select key resources of interest on their websites.

A review of 154 Canadian EAPs found that 130 organizations had developed formal policies governing the program while 24 had not. Organizations with a policy were larger in size and were more likely to be unionized. They were also more likely to have had their EAP initiated by a joint labour-management committee and to use peer supports and internal resources to deliver EAP services. Of those EAPs without a policy, a disproportionate number had been developed during the 1990s. EAPs that had not developed a policy were also more likely to have begun exclusively by management and were more likely to rely on a thirdparty provider for clinical and administrative services. Of the 130 programs with EAP policies, 80 provided copies to be analyzed. Policies ranged in size from one to 31 pages with varying levels of comprehensiveness. Using the EAP Policy Best Practices Guidelines, policies scored between 5% and 75% with a mean of 36.7%. The introductory statement of principles, including discussions of the range of problems to be covered, confidentiality and union/management endorsement, was typically the strongest area of the policies. Areas that typically required enhancement were program development and EAP program roles. The comprehensiveness of the EAP policy was correlated with the size of the organization but not with program utilization. Public sector policies tended to be more comprehensive though only 26 of the 80 policies received a score of 50% or greater.

This overview of Employee and Family Assistance Programming in Canada examines the nature and structure of 154 EFAPs from across Canada. Information was obtained regarding when programs were developed and who initiated the program, as well as who provides assistance and their qualifications. Details of program components, including coverage, access routes, use of volunteers, promotion, training and the utility of capping counselling services, are also discussed

A secondary analysis of data provided the initial examination of comparative metrics pertaining to Canadian employee assistance program (EAP) vendors. Contracts held by the 12 participating organizations ranged from 10 to 6,500 with lives covered ranging from 300,000 to 6.3 million, underscoring not only the diverse nature of EAP vendors in Canada but issues with comparing data among such vastly different providers. The most prominent model of service provision was capped EAP counseling which led to an average of 3.1 counseling sessions per client with only one vendor having a mean of greater than four. The majority of counseling offered through Canadian EAP vendors is provided by fee for service affiliate counselors. All client satisfaction scores were positive; however, the vast majority of clients did not complete any type of evaluation leaving both EAP vendors and client organizations with no substantive knowledge of the impact of the service. In the comparatively small EAP market that Canada represents, it was not surprising to learn that the greatest business concern of the vendors was product pricing, especially as ten percent of EAP services were being provided as part of larger bundled benefits plans and thus there was no actual direct cost for the EAP.