The Stretched Counselor
  • Home
  • SELFCARE
    • Physical SelfCare
    • Mental SelfCare >
      • Mindfulness
    • Emotional SelfCare >
      • Your Brain & Stress
    • Spiritual SelfCare
    • Energizing SelfCare
  • Mental Health
    • MHFA & Youth MHFA
    • Mental Health Messages >
      • ACEs >
        • 2010 ACEs Study
      • Resilence
      • Stress and Self Care
      • Suicide Prevention
      • Full Plate-Teachers
      • LBGTQIA+ >
        • LGBTQ+ Online Safety
      • Facebook Posts
  • Presentations
    • Staying Sane
    • Teacher Stress & Mental Health
  • Book Discussions
    • Drive Book Discussion
    • Quiet Book Discussion
  • School Counselor
    • Counselor Blog
    • Guidance >
      • Curriculum >
        • PreK - K
        • Grades 1 - 2
        • Grades 3 - 4
        • Grades 5 - 6 >
          • Your Amazing Brain
        • 8th Grade >
          • Multiple Intelligence
          • College Tours
      • ACP >
        • Career Cruising
      • SEL
    • Mental Health in Schools >
      • TeleMental Health
      • Suicide Prevention for Teens
      • MH Video Clips
      • Staff Support >
        • Compassion Resilience
        • Support in the classroom
    • Links
  • About
    • Contact
    • Radicals & Rebels

Employee Assistance Programs... you probably have one

5/21/2019

0 Comments

 
There's something called an Employee Assistance Program (EAP)-- a confidential workplace service that employers (districts) pay for, a benefit like health or dental insurance. An EAP helps employees deal with work-life stressors, family issues, financial concerns, relationship problems, and even drug or legal concerns.

"Helps employees deal with work-life stressors"? Those potential mental health concerns? Yes! These are the steps in how it works in our district:
  • Contact your HR person (the bookkeeper at my school, we're small). That person will get you in touch with the district's EAP. 
  • The EAP makes contact with the employee, finds out the concern (i.e. going through an ugly separation, really affecting energy and interest in work), the EAP connects the employee with a mental health counselor in the area. 
  • In our district it's limited to three visits to a mental health professional per year. 
  • It's totally free for employees (you, your co-workers) and it's confidential.

If you're saying, "how did I not know about this," well neither did I until just recently and I've been working in my district for 25 years. The stigma concerning mental health is around getting treatment as well as talking about the concern. That's got to change.  We can start that change by sharing information about EAPs with our colleagues.  We'd let them know if there were free donuts in the lounge, this is even better!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Counselor concerns, issues, challenges, and triumphs.

    Archives

    January 2021
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed