Employee assistance programme: a threat to your institution plus all calls are recorded?

[Batsinmyattic]

I have been undergoing a stressful period recently and wanted to get stuff off my shoulders.

I decided to call my EAP who offer a free counselling service. They are supposedly anonymous and confidential.

I understand that privacy can and should be waived if someone is going to harm a child or themselves.. however what does “a threat to your institution” mean? Does that mean if I say I’m going to approach the building with a burning torch they will waive confidentiality (understandable!) or could this mean anything?

To me it could mean anything..

Similarly “all calls are recorded for quality” etc just reeks of nothing remotely confidential about this call..

AIBU for feeling dubious about this and curtailing the call?

They are confidential, unless the reasons you specify above. Unless you are thinking if torching the place, harming yourself, harming someone in the place, threatening to destroy files etc then I think you'll be OK.

I am not planning on doing anything dubious myself.. but feel that these things like “a threat to the institution” are too potentially wide ranging. That could mean anything and be weaponised. If I’m a blubbering mess, am I a threat to the institution? I lack imagination but I definitely feel this is open to interpretation and needs clear definition. Also the necessity to record.. Really? Is it necessary to record?

A threat to the institution does sound vague to me as well.

that could mean anything from planning to burn down the building to not doing your best work because you are a bit distracted these days.

I can absolutely see your point on both - but I can also see theirs.

"A threat to the institution" - If you say you're drowning in work and haven't invoiced anyone in six months; or you've really fucked up and there's potentially huge backlash coming, etc; I'd expect them to encourage you to talk to someone - and then to encourage someone to talk to you, too. If you said you were planning to fireball the place; I'd expect them to call the police... I don't think being a blubbering mess or being behind would be enough to consider it an institutional threat.

And recording is likely because if they advise you; they need to be able to recall what was said in future. Otherwise you could say that they advised you to zero out all the invoices and not bill for those six months; for example, and they'd not be able to defend themselves...

To be honest, as much as the idea of an EAP is nice, I'd probably approach other places first unless it's truly external to your company. Company schemes will always have the company as a first or equal priority.

Nothing is confidential. The calls are recorded and the “listener” will take notes. Your telephone number will also be noted.

"Threat to the institution" sounds vague

I'd guess it could include if eg you're so stressed you can't concentrate and do your work properly? That could be dangerous in some settings eg patient care

Also agree with you about calls being recorded. I wouldn't be happy about that

That still covers confidential.

'A threat to the institution' means that if you tell them you've committed or are planning to commit a crime (such as burning the place down or running off with the company pension fund) they will have to disclose that. It's essentially safeguarding really - a bit like if you went to the doctor and said 'I keep hearing voices telling me to murder my family and yesterday I was looking at my child and I could see that they were actually not my child but a demon that I must exterminate' they would not be breaking doctor-patient confidentiality by alerting social services.

It doesn't mean that they'll tell your employer if you confess that you're doing really badly at your job or that you're thinking of whistleblowing, or anything like that.

In terms of confidentiality, recording the call is intended to protect you in case the advisor says something inappropriate or gives you the wrong advice etc. Recording it doesn't mean they can, or would, share it.

But how would you know @ManateeFair ? The conditions under which it is a threat to your organisation are at their interpretation and need to be defined clearly by them? Otherwise it is speculation.

Also feel it is best to approach other places!!

But how would you know @ManateeFair ? The conditions under which it is a threat to your organisation are at their interpretation and need to be defined clearly by them?

No, because they clearly can't list every possible threat as that would leave them open if you managed to come up with a new one by Mission: Impossibling your way into the building using an underwater helicopter. They can't define every way you could be a threat, there are simply far too many ways.

Are you in a union? Their helplines might be a better bet. I am so suspicious of my current employer (with very good reason) that I wouldn't trust their HR/Exec endorsed EAP program as far as I could throw it.

Re confidentiality, as a clinical worker I take notes but this doesn't mean that I circulate these notes to anyone outside of patient's care team, safeguarding or other relevant authorities. I would imagine the recorded calls operate under similar circumstances (although 20 years ago I had a confidential survey with someone from the head office about some bollocks they were implementing which was then cheerfully reported to my superior, so one can never really know. I would have taken them to tribunal over this if I were older and smarter at that time).
As far as "threat to organisation", I agree, the language is highly ambiguous and I would seek clarifications (in writing) before going further with the process.

If all you want is to be able to offload/cry to someone in confidence (rather than a referral for other EAP services like CBT), just call Samaritans or similar.

I deal with benefits, and the EAP definitely won't hand over any confidential info even if the calls are recorded - the most we get is some high level stats on how many calls etc

And even if you do want CBT, you can self-refer for that for free on the NHS. Same number of sessions as you'd get from an EAP and no fear of them reporting back to your employer.

And to clarify the stats are not by person, they are overall organisation numbers

Yeh, although if you've only had one person use the EAP to talk about work stress or addiction or whatever, it becomes significantly more identifiable.

But they don't give you any idea of who has been in touch and there is no need for employees to disclose it either. A lot of EAPs also allow for family members to contact

Most EAP providers are sub contracted into workplaces to provide support for the staff.
I imagine most of the staff working for an EAP don't even know which company you are working for when you call as many EAP providers work for numerous organisations.

This is probably why the wording is so vague, to make sure their confidentiality boundaries are not company specific.

"Threat to your institution" must necessarily be something that wouldn't be covered by the usual reasons a counsellor would have to break confidentiality. Otherwise there'd be no need for it. This is far far far too open to interpretation for this to be an ethical service, IMO.

The point of counselling and therapy is that the practitioner is non judgemental. Only in cases of potential or actual human harm is confidentiality broken. But in this example, the counsellor has the remit to also consider "harm" to the institution! That is not clear cut at all! Financial harm? Reputational harm? And how do they judge that? If the relationship encourages you to disclose mental health difficulties, how do we know a counsellor (already working IMO unethically) won't be biased against that and decide you're automatically a financial/ reputational risk?

Re the recording, the service ought to have a GDPR policy which outlines what data they process, why they need it, and what steps they take to ensure your anonymity. You have a right to decline them keeping your data without affecting your right to the service, I think.

But I'd steer clear anyway. Therapy relationships have the potential to help greatly but unethical practitioners are far more likely to do harm.

EAP is an elective and free service offered by some workplaces - they are for signposting employees towards many services, not just counselling and MH support. I'd use them for financial advice, general employment advice and other non-contentious anxiliary services they might offer. I wouldn't use them for anything that I didn't want to have the risk of getting back to my employer. I wouldn't talk to them if I was a "blubbering mess", if things are that bad I'd go to my GP first and foremost.

normally the initial point of contact is to assess need, so if you were to say "I've been going through significant relationship challenges, can I have some counselling", they will probably send you a list of professionals in your area and you can use one of them. You could discuss the confidentiality aspect directly with the 3rd party professional on your first visit. They are bound by their own professional standards of privacy, and normally just report back to the EAP with anonymised high level comments not attributable to the employee by name.

there's no point taking issue with their Ts & Cs, they are what they are, just control the amount of information you divulge, keep it high level. There's no such thing as a free lunch as they say. It doesn't sound like your EAP is the right resource if you're that mistrusting of them/your company.

We have an EAP at work - several staff members, including myself have used it, and they’ve never reported anything back to our employer.

I deal with the HR here so receive the reports from the EAP - we just get informed whether it’s been used and how many times. No names or even which service within the EAP.

Therapy relationships have the potential to help greatly but unethical practitioners are far more likely to do harm.

under the EAP schemes I've belonged to, any professionals whose services and support are offered under the scheme are screened, credentials checked and only those that meet high standards of accreditation/certification are on their panel of experts for staff to select. It would not be in the EAP provider's best interests reputationally to be associated with, or offer service from an "unethical practitioner".

It's generally right to be sceptical of HR, but in this case it's ok to disclose as they're doing this to boost employee productivity and reduce sick leave or other issues, not to get personal data.

Our EAP is external and the info they share is about the payments due and anonymous overall stats about usage, eg "X number of employees have contacted the service". "25% of calls related to stress, anxiety or depression".

That's it. We rightly get given no data to identify which employees are using it, let alone anything personal about what they've shared etc, with the usual therapy-type exception for critical issues (eg an employee disclosing a plan to harm someone else).

Providers have a code of conduct that might reassure you UK EAPA Code of Ethics https://www.eapa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/UK-EAPA-Code-of-Ethics-2014.pdf