respond to my classmate post
Mental health providers role in the workplace is to help individual employees, their families, and work organizations. Employee assistance programs (EAPs) provide mental health services to employees, recognizing that personal and professional issues can affect work performance, health, and general well-being (Gladding & Newsome, p.377). Services they include are therapy for emotional and mental health issues, family problems, substance abuse and addictions, to name a few. In addition, mental health providers also work with corporate clients in providing training, consultations, information and education activities. EAPs can make referrals for employees who need additional mental health services, and typically the services are short-term.
Mental health services offered to employees impacts them and the employers in a positive way. By offering this service to employees it benefits the employee by letting them have someone to talk to especially if they are feeling burnout at work. This service will improve the quality of services provided by employees and helps the employers look good. For the employer’s side of things, it shows that they really care about the overall well-being of the employees and want them to succeed. It makes their company stand out from others by providing this service, because not all companies have that kind of compassion for their employees.
One challenge that clinicians may face by working in employee assistance programs are making sure the EAPs have set clear boundaries. The clinicians work with and for the employees and the employers of the company, so they can be some situations that arise that maybe a conflict of interest. Boundary and competency issues can also occur when EAP counselors are expected to take on ever-expanding roles that may go well beyond their levels of expertise (Gladding & Newsome, p.381). Moreover, when it comes to helping certain client’s issues may arise that the clinicians are not able to speak on, so a referral will have to be in place for those special cases. Clinicians must know how far their competency and boundary lines go, because there will be clients that will try to depend on them for any issue that may arise.
