NASW Social Work Talks - EP60: History of EAPs

Episode Date: September 29, 2020

Dale A. Masi, PhD, LCSW-C, CEAP, is Professor Emeritus at University of Maryland and author of "The History of Employee Assistance Programs in the United States." She talks to us about the social work roots of EAPs. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) offer resources to help individuals address personal issues that may be affecting their work performance, health and emotional well-being. See the show notes

Welcome to Social Work Talks. Today, host Aaliyah Wright speaks with Dr. Dale Massey, a social worker and professor emeritus at the University of Maryland. Dr. Massey is the creator of Employee Assistance Programs, also known as EAPs. An EAP offers individuals assistance with personal issues that may be affecting their work performance, health, and emotional well-being. EAPs can help reduce absenteeism, increase productivity, and improve job satisfaction and morale. But few people know that EAPs have their roots in social work. Welcome, Professor.

Thank you. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you created the first EAP program for the federal government back in the 1980s. In the 1970s, when a senator in the United States, a senator got up and said, that he was concerned about the federal government's support of mental health and the fact that they had the National Institute of Mental Health and there was nothing as far as alcohol and alcoholism. And so he founded, as a recovering alcoholic,

made sure through legislation that we had the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and alcoholism was formed as part of the institutes of the federal government. Well, what that law did and what it included was very interesting. It said that all federal employees must have a program whereby they can receive help if they needed it. simultaneously. I was at Boston College on the faculty, and one of the alumni wrote to our dean and said, you ought to take a look at what's happening in Utah. There is a social worker there named Otto Jones who is establishing what's called an employee assistance program, dealing with employees in the workplace with alcohol problems. The dean asked me to take a

look at it. I then realized that there was a tremendous opportunity with the federal government's funding and interest in these programs for social work and for community organization and social planning students. I then received quite a bit of money from the federal government and ran training programs in Boston, well, like Boston College, and using my social work students, we had different, five different programs, different models and types, whereby we provided EAP services to employees. It turned out to be very successful. And at the same time, Joseph Califano was secretary of HHS, and that, back to that original

federal legislation, not only did it say that all federal employees had to have an EAP program, it said that HHS would have the model program. And Califano looked across the country and decided that the program in Boston was the best. So he brought me to Washington. And that's how I became involved in setting up the model program for the federal government. And what would have far reaching implications worldwide too. So besides counseling, what other services do EAPs provide? To be considered an EAP, you have to have what we call the essential services. And that includes working with supervisors, working with managers. But in addition, there are what's called optional services. And these are the other services, child care services, elder care services, financial. And

one of the biggest is legal. We also do critical incidents. We really got involved in that very heavily at 9-11. When that occurred, many, many EAPs came from across the country and volunteered their time in counseling. So that kind of put us into the critical incident area. There's wellness programs. There are many, many different kinds of services, and they're called optional. And it depends on which services the companies want to buy so you mentioned 9-11 that brings us to another crisis that we're dealing with all over the world which is covet 19 because so many employees have been impacted by the coronavirus how have eaps evolved it started with uh actually to the credit of IBM with their EAP program, which I was the original designer of after I left the

federal government and returned then to the University of Maryland as a professor in EAPs, and IBM approached me to set up their program. They, after we had the EAP, it was IBM who said they needed some kind of child care services, and it started with child care and it was very interesting because at that time there were no child care services available for workplace and ibm set up a organization a different group called the work family directions and funded across the country numbers of child care programs And then they added elder care. Now, as time went on, there is a professional association that deals with EAPs.

They then started adding the idea of financial and legal, and I already told you about the critical incidents and the wellness, et cetera. Okay. So now a large number of people delivering clinical services through EAP programs are social workers. Right. What should they consider when they're treating people through an EAP program? Most of the EAP counselors are clinically licensed social workers at the highest level. What the counselors need to do that's unique when you're dealing in employee assistance is ask the clients about the workplace.

First of all, what is their job? What do they do? The other thing is ask them about their supervisor. The supervisor, frankly, to some employees is as important as a parent and is seen almost as a parent figure. Who is the supervisor? Do you get along with your supervisor? The other thing is ask about coworkers. In other words, they're almost like siblings.

Do you socialize with your coworkers? What do they like? Do you get along? And lastly, and most important, what about the atmosphere of the workplace? Are you happy at your job? Do you like your job? Remember, a lot of people spend more time at the job than they do at home. And very often, these questions are never asked in traditional counseling.

Listeners, we'll be right back. NASW Press is the leading scholarly press in the social sciences. Our publications reach faculty, practitioners, agencies, and researchers in social work and related disciplines. Visit naswpress.org for scholarly books, reference works, brochures, and periodicals. And we're back. Why do you think EAPs are on the rise during these unprecedented times? This is not necessarily the skills of the human resource people. So they're relying tremendously, and particularly now with COVID.

But any company that doesn't have an EAP is asking for one. But in addition, the EAPs are being used tremendously now as support for managers and support for employees with this terrible thing that's occurring. So we know that EAPs are now in other countries. Which ones? I have also taught an online EAP school. We have employees from all over the world, every continent, except Antarctica. I had students from Mongolia, Philippines, Japan, New Zealand, Guyana, Russia, Germany. Name the country.

They've got EAPs. Wow. So, Professor Mazza, your book is available online for download and for purchase on Amazon. The name of the book is The History of Employee Assistance Programs in the United States. Why did you make the book so widespread? I received a grant from the Employee Assistance Research Foundation that supported my writing the book. And they, from the very beginning, wanted the book to have wide distribution at their cost. So the book is also available free digitally.

If you go on my website, the link is there, and that's EAPMassey.com. Professor Massey, is there anything you think our listeners might want to know? Besides counseling, there are other jobs that are available for social workers. There are senior jobs, account managers, marketing, training, PR, as well as managerial positions. I don't want to see social workers only thinking about EAPs as counseling. There are a lot of other jobs there, and good jobs, and they're well-paying. So I would encourage people to take a look at the EAP field. Professor, thank you so much.

Thank you all very much for having me. Bye-bye. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. And don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode.

Thank you.