HISTORY OF EAP |
It wasn't until the early 1940's that several large corporations found that alcoholism was a serious problem among their workers. They trained supervisors to recognize the signs and symptoms of drinking. These supervisors were not trained as counselors and were recovering alcoholics themselves, merely steering the employees towards the care that helped them become sober. These programs had little success for several reasons; first supervisors were hesitant to stigmatize someone with the label of a drinking problem, second it was very difficult for minimally trained supervisors to identify early stage of alcoholics, third heavily drinkers could be very skillful in manipulating people and their environment, and fourth other emotional and family problems affected work performance as much as or more than alcoholism. Gradually the alcoholism programs became Employee Assistance Programs, focusing on performance problems in general, rather than alcohol use alone. By expanding this approach, it solved 2 major problems, first by taking the alcohol out of the name of the program it removed some of the dishonor it previously had, it increased the likelihood of people to self-refer for a variety of problems. Supervisors were also making more referrals to the program. Secondly instead of training supervisors in the recognition of symptoms of alcoholism, they could be trained in recognizing general performance problems. By doing this it will leave the identification and treatment of the primary problems to professionals. Later these programs expanded to two basic types of EAP programs the assessment and referral model and the full-service model. The assessment and referral model employs trained counselors who are familiar with the area resources and can refer people to appropriate care after a brief assessment process. The full service model provides short-term problems identification and resolution and uses counselors trained in a process of helping employees with a wide range of problems. Most full service EAP programs are able to handle 60% or more of the problems they see. |
DEFINITION OF EAP |
| EAP's are an employer-sponsored service designed to assist employees, their spouses and their dependent children in finding help for emotional, drug/alcohol, family, health and other personal or job-related problems. The services are provided at no cost to the employee. An EAP is a problem-solving service that provides assessment evaluation and treatment for a full range of problems. It also provides supervisory consultation and educational services on an ongoing basis. Among other things, the EAP is your private and confidential counseling service. EAP's are generally provided by employers or jointly by employers and unions. Some focus only in substance abuse problems; others undertake a “broad brush” approach to a range of employee and family problems. Some include proactive prevention and health and wellness activities, as well as problem identification and referral, and some are actively linked to the employee health benefit structure. An important characteristic of an EAP is an emphasis on constructive rather than punitive treatment of employee behaviors. EAP's are open to all employees and members of their immediate family. |
DEFINITION OF WELLNESS |
| A workplace wellness program includes both the employer and employee working together to provide a work environment that is both receptive and supportive of the employees well being and encourages employee responsibility (1) Wellness is the process of encouraging people to maintain good health by changing destructive habits and have the people take greater responsibility of the state of their health. The idea of corporate wellness programs is to prevent problems from occurring and not have to treat problems after they have occurred. |