Employee Assistance Program

EAP stands for Employee Assistance Programs. These are programs purchased by companies for the benefit of their employees, families, spouses and significant others that reside with them. It provides free, no cost, confidential screening/assessments, referrals and counseling which is paid for by the employer. EAP is not an insurance or managed care benefit requiring a co-pay.

The EAP counseling is short term solution focused brief therapy and often will be within a “session model” that allows 1-6 counseling sessions available. The initial session is a screening/assessment to determine whether the issue is appropriate for short term solution focused counseling, or whether longer term counseling is clinically more appropriate. It should be noted that EAP solution focused brief therapy is a proven effective tool in resolving a variety of presenting issues. Some EAP session models meet or exceed the national average of counseling sessions used under managed care.

Presenting issues might typically be: depression, stress, relationship concerns, work related issues, grief, drug/alcohol, other addictions, and couples or family issues. When needed and clinically appropriate, the EAP affiliate counselor will seek to provide referrals to community supports/resources, longer term counseling, treatment facilities and/or psychiatric services.

The sessions are confidential and the EAP design is that the employer company does not get identifying information about an employee using this benefit.

This insures anonymity for the client and a safe counseling environment. An exception to this would be mandatory referrals (sometimes called formal referrals) in which case the client would sign a written release of information allowing the EAP to confirm attendance, compliance, and recommendations to a designated supervisor or HR individual. There are other rare situations where state law and ethics may require reporting to local authorities.

In addition to this, Psychological Services of Charlotte have counselors who are experienced in presenting on a variety of topics for companies plus facilitating critical incident stress debriefings for work place stress/trauma. Presentation examples would be work related stress, team building, professional communication, conflict resolution, change management and others. PSOC is pleased to participate as affiliate providers for over a half dozen EAP’s. Please call our office 704-503-3535 to see if we are an affiliate provider for your company’s EAP.