NASW Social Work Talks - EP 119: Update on the EAP Landscape

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Dr. Dale Masi is  a pioneering social worker renowned for her work in Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs). Dr. Masi, who recently edited the Fifth International EAP Compendium, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland, where she taught and directed the Employee Assistance Specialization for 22 years. With 16 books and over 70 articles to her name, Dr. Masi's expertise spans EAPs, evaluation, and mental health issues. She holds a doctorate from the Catholic University of America and has received prestigious awards, including a post-doctoral research award from the American Association of University Women. A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Masi has lectured in more than 45 countries and consults globally through her company, Masi Research Consultants, Inc., which serves a diverse range of clients from major corporations to government agencies. Click here for her insights on EAPs and the evolving landscape of workplace mental health.

This episode of Social Work Talks is sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I'm your host, Aaliyah Wright. Joining us today is the social worker who created Employee Assistance Programs, Dr. Dale Massey, who has just edited the fifth international EAP compendium. She is Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland, where she taught for 22 years and directed the Employee Assistance Specialization. The author of 16 books and more than 70 articles dealing with EAPs, evaluation, and various mental health issues, Dr. Massey holds a doctorate from the Catholic University of America and was the recipient of a postdoctoral research award from the American Association of University Women. She was a Fulbright scholar and specialist to England, Italy, Hong Kong, and Japan, and has lectured in over 45 countries.

Dr. Massey is also president and CEO of Massey Research Consultants Incorporated, a Boston company specializing in employee assistant program design, implementation, training, and evaluation. Her corporate clients have included the American Management Association, Pfizer, Goodyear, IBM, Merrill Lynch, Toyota Motor Sales, and many other corporations large and small. Government organizations served by Massey include the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Postal Service, and the U.S. House and Senate. She consults for major EAP providers and has served on the IBM Mental Health Advisory Board. Welcome, Dr. Massey. Well, thank you. And thank you so very much for having me. You know, I'm one of you.

So I'm just thrilled to be able to talk to my fellow social workers. Wonderful. For those of you who don't know, an employee assistance program, or EAP, provides assistance for individuals with personal issues that may be affecting their work performance, their health, and emotional well-being. People using EAP programs have found them useful because not only can they help improve morale through job satisfaction, reduce absenteeism, and increase productivity, but very few people are aware that you are the creators of EAP and they have their beginnings in social work. Before we dive into this latest edition, can you tell us first a little about your background, why you became a social worker, and how you developed the first EAP program in the 1980s?

Oh, I'm happy to talk about this. Well, the way I became a social worker is very interesting. I was in my senior year at college, and one day my philosophy professor, who I was very fond of, Father Halpin, came and asked me, he said, what are you going to do, Dale, when you graduate? I said, oh, I'm going to go to law school. He said, no, no, no, law school is not for you. I said, well, why not? Why not? He said, because they won't let you speak the way you want to. They'll put you in a back room because you're a woman. No, no, you must go into community organization. I said, what? What is that? And so he said, there are three schools that offer that

as a master's in social work, Catholic U, BC, Boston College, and BU, Boston University. He said, that's for you. The reason he said that is I was quite a rabble rouser at college. I was student body president, class president for years and led several groups and the agitation and things like that. Anyway, I looked and went to the three schools and knew immediately that this is what I wanted, not law, that I wanted this. So that's how I got in, became a social worker. But then the question of how did I get into EAPs? I was, before a professor at the University of Maryland, I was a tenured professor at Boston College, and I chaired their social planning division in the school, which of course was the community organization one. Well, while I was there, a social worker who was in Utah with Kennecott Copper as his field placement was there, and one of our alumni wrote to the dean and said, you need to take a look at what this social worker is doing. We need to have a program like this. So the dean asked me to look at it because he knew that I was familiar with corporations, not only because of myself, but because of my husband at the time, who was a military officer.

We had a lot of contracts with major companies, so I was really quite comfortable with them. But I wasn't quite sure how to start this new thing. And then serendipitously, let me just say, it turns out that Harvard was holding a major conference for their alumni because they were losing so many to alcoholism. And so they have this major conference, which is very expensive. So I called up and I said, could a poor faculty member attend? And they said, sure. Anyway, what I saw there was the federal government beginning to invest in alcohol programs in the workplace. So I put this together in grant proposal and for years then in Boston, got quite a bit of money from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse. And I set up EAP programs, you all as social workers will love this, in five different corporate settings, including a chamber of commerce, a military base, and, you know, several others, the telephone company. And I used my social planning or CO student as kind of the director and two counseling students. So we had these five different corporate locations with my graduate students.

And I got lots of money from the federal government to do this. And we ran counseling programs. And to everyone's surprise, lots and lots of employees came for help. And so that's where you might say the beginnings began with me. And then at the time, the secretary of HHS, Califano, wanted to set up alcohol programs for the workplace. And so he went around the country and looked at programs and decided that our program at Boston College was the best. So he brought me down to Washington to start the federal program. And of course, it was enormous. We had 175,000 employees. We had 10 offices, but we became the model program for the entire federal government. So it's been a wonderful ride for me. Wow, that's incredible. Thank you so much. So included in your latest edition of your book, which is titled The Fifth International Employee Assistance Compendium, is a broad range of topics completely relevant for today, including the impact of the pandemic on EAPs and mental health services,

technological challenges and trends, diversity and inclusion, as well as the role of social media in the field. So let's chat first about the changes. Let's start with the role of EAPs and the pandemic and how that has changed things. Let me just quote from one of my authors, the author from Portugal, who said that the pandemic broke the stigma worldwide around mental health. And that's true. I was blown away when I did this, the fifth, to see how so many countries, the book has 68 different countries with 50, with 55 authors. And so it was just amazing to see the growth. And India said that, the Indian author said that the pandemic broke the stigma, you know, not only around the way the one from Portugal did, but the one from India said it was a game changer. So, in that way, the pandemic, you know, certainly made going for EAPs acceptable. And I was just amazed to see the growth. And when you look at the countries, you know, Nigeria, Malaysia, the Arab Emirates, I mean, just, and all of them, you know, having programs. So, the impact was worldwide.

worldwide worldwide yes so now let's discuss mental health services as you know the pandemic really took a real toll on a lot of people and as you just said it was all over the world globally not only are more people today suffering from mental health issues as well as the subsequent substance abuse issues but there is also a shortage of mental health professionals who can help them heal including social workers how are eap providers coping with these challenges well let me tell you i'm i i have a slight bias here i am not happy with our schools of social work they've dropped the eap specialization uh and as a result i mean my own program in maryland that was you know really quite large we graduated social workers all the time specializing

in this um so it's quite a quite an issue in dealing and getting uh social workers i mean most social workers think oh i can do eaps but they don't understand the essential elements They don't understand how to work with supervisors. They don't understand that they have to train supervisors. So I'm not a happy camper about our schools of social work, and they're not, you know, what they're doing in dropping the programs. So it's difficult coping. You know, people want to work for EAPs. That's not an issue because they pay well.

you know, salaries are really quite good for an EAP. So a lot of social workers think because they're a social worker with an MSW, they can do EAPs. They don't understand the essential ingredients of an EAP, what makes it different than traditional mental health. So in that way, that's not so good. Listeners, we'll be right back. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellows Program seeks mid-career professionals to participate in the federal policy process to improve the health of the nation. The fellowship is comprised of two unique experiences, an immersive orientation period and a hands-on placement working as a senior advisor to an elected or appointed federal government official.

Applications open on August 1st and close on November 1st, 2024 at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Learn more at healthpolicyfellows.org. And we're back. We're chatting with Dr. Dale Massey, editor of the updated International Employee Assistance Compendium. Our very own Denise Johnson, who is a senior practice associate with NASW, was among the contributors. So tell us, how many authors are there in this edition and how many countries are EAPs in now?

There are 68 countries that have programs with 54 different authors. These authors are not necessarily social workers at all. I can't tell you how many of them are or not. to tell you the truth. I've never, you know, looked at it that way. But we had, as I say, we have 68 different chapters with different countries. And Dr. Massa, you also delve into the unique aspects of each country's program, the use of technology and social media, and the importance of diversity in the EAP field. What was that like? All right. First of all, right now, one of the biggest findings we found were that virtual counseling is universal.

So that's made a tremendous difference in the delivery of EAP services. services. However, what's a disadvantage with that is that the workplace is getting lost because it becomes, if we're not careful, more of a traditional mental health services. However, but to show you how virtual counseling is worldwide, I do want to tell you technologically some unique things that other countries are doing. For example, Nigeria talked about how now with virtual and EAPs, they can bring EAPs to oil riggers that are offshore. The Arab Emirates talked about the disabled and we can reach the disabled with virtual. Thailand uses sign language for the virtual. I don't know where we are in the U.S. with, for example, the disabled, with the sign

language. I mean, this gives you some idea of the uniqueness of other countries and how, you know, original they are. Now, the question of diversity, I ask that also, and I have some, interesting things to relay here. First of all, we are the only country of all of these that define diversity by color. The rest of them define it by LGBTQ, which is very interesting because I'd say diversity would come back LGBT comments. So we're the only ones using color you know, when we talk about diversity. A couple of interesting things. Bangladesh has transgender as an official third gender. Wow. I just think that's unbelievable. Isn't that something? Unbelievable. Hong Kong, they let the clients choose what

pronouns they want to use. Now, on the other hand, which is not good, Jordan has low tolerance for LGBTQ, and so does, I was surprised, South Korea. Moving on to the technological challenges and trends and the role of social media, let's start with technology challenges. The pandemic exacerbated social workers' ability to treat patients. However, many were able to pivot during the shutdown and treat people remotely. Do you think that byproduct may help the work of EAPs in the future? And I know we've just talked about that a little bit. Yes and no. Yes, because I already explained how you can reach people and populations that we have not worked with. However, what is really negative, which, you know, really is at the heart of EAPs,

there's no working with supervisors, there's no working with managers. To be called yourself an EAP, you're supposed to have some of these essential ingredients. And one of them is that the EAP trains managers for how to look when employees have issues and problems, how to use the EAP to refer. It also provides, supposed to provide training in what are signs and symptoms. So what's not good about the remote is what I don't want to see is EAPs ending up being nothing but outpatient mental health programs. That's not what we are. And so that's a real issue in getting, and now, unfortunately, too many social workers, you know, as my corporate clients that I have, some of them really want social workers or EAPs on the workplace. They

want them, they will pay for them to go to the workplace. It is very, very difficult to find social workers that are willing to get out of their offices and go. And I'm, you know, I'm not happy about our profession in that direction. They all want to be, not all, but a lot want to be in their own offices, private clients come to them. That's not what EAPs are about. So just to pivot a little bit, we know that social workers nationwide are working to pass legislation in their individual states through a social work licensure compact that will allow them to treat patients in participating compact states, not just where they first sought treatment. What other technological challenges and trends are there?

I would say AI is, you know, is extremely important to kind of learn about it and what it is. Are there any other technological challenges and trends that you're seeing? well i think i i as i say i think we gotta get to be able to get get back into the workplace technologically however and provide we can provide trainings now worldwide you know for our companies i mean you take somebody like what i had a i have an ibm you got employees and you know every country, all over. So when you service companies and work with them, you really have to know where their employees are located. Now I'm talking about, you know, most social workers I'm concerned are only interested in the counseling part of EAPs. They don't understand, back to my

interest in community organization, of what it means to run programs, to organize them. I mean, how many social workers are doing that? That's very different. That, in my opinion, is the exciting part. First of all, EAPs are worldwide. And in my opinion, the most interesting thing that's occurring is that they're becoming organized and organized in groups worldwide. Any final thoughts on what social workers should know about new developments in employee assistance programs and what they can get out of the new compendium? First of all, I need social workers to educate themselves about what an EAP is and what's the difference between being, you know, a social worker seeing people in their office for mental health and when they see somebody with the

EAP. When they see an employee, somebody who, when a client comes in, how many times do they ask about where do they work? How do you get along with your supervisor? In my opinion, the supervisor is almost as important as a spouse to an employee. Thank you listeners for tuning in to this episode of Social Work Talks as we embarked on an enlightening journey into the world of employee assistance programs. We hope you enjoyed our conversation. A link to Dr. Massey's new book, The Fifth International EAP Compendium, can be found in the show notes section of our website. Just Google NASW Social Work Talks to find it. And please don't forget to leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Again, thank you so much for listening.

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