Episode 119 Transcript: Update on the EAP Landscape

Host: Aliah Wright
This episode of Social Work Talks is sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I'm your host, Aliah Wright. Joining us today is the social worker who created employee assistance programs, Dr. Dale Masi, who has just edited the fifth international EAP compendium. She is Professor Emeritis 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. Masi holds a doctorate from the Catholic University of America and was the recipient of a post-doctoral 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. Masi is also president and CEO of Masi 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 US Postal Service, and the US House and Senate. She consults for major EAP providers and has served on the IBM Mental Health Advisory Board. Welcome Dr. Masi.

Guest: Dale Masi:
Well, thank you and thank you so very much for having me. I'm one of you, so I'm just thrilled to be able to talk to my fellow social workers.

Wright:
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 wellbeing. 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?

Masi:
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 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 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 became a social worker. But then the question of how did I get into EAPs 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, and he 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 tally, 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 had 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 and military base and 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 surprised, 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,

Wright:
That's incredible. Thank you so much. So include it 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.

Masi:
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, 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 certainly made going for EAPs acceptable, and I was just amazed to see the growth. And when you look at the countries, Nigeria, Malaysia, the Arab Emirates and all of them having a program.

Wright:
So the impact was worldwide,

Masi:
Worldwide. Worldwide. Yes.

Wright:
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's also a shortage of mental health professionals who can help them heal, including social workers. How are EAP providers coping with these challenges?

Masi:
Well, let me tell you, I have a slight bias here. I am not happy with our schools of social work. They've dropped the EAP specialization and as a result, I mean my own program in Maryland that was really quite large, we graduated social workers all the time specializing in this show. It's quite an issue in dealing and getting 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 what they're doing in dropping the programs. So it's difficult coping people want to work for EAPs. That's not an issue because they pay well. 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.

Wright:
Listeners will 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 3:00 PM Eastern Standard time. Learn more@healthpolicyfellows.org. And we're back. We're chatting with Dr. Dale Masi, 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?

Masi:
There are, there's 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 looked at it that way. But we had, as I say, we have 68 different chapters with different countries

Wright:
And Dr. Masi, 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?

Masi:
Alright, 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. 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 are, 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 US with, for example, the disabled with sign language. I mean, this gives you some idea of the uniqueness of other countries and how original they are.

Now the question of diversity, I asked that also, and I have I think 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 L-G-B-T-Q, which is very interesting because I'd say diversity would come back LGBT comments. So we're the only ones using color. 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. That is something, 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 L-G-B-T-Q and so does I was surprised South Korea.

Wright:
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.

Masi:
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 really is at the heart of EAPs, there's no working with supervisors. There's no working managers 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 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 as my corporate clients that I have, some of them really want social workers or EAPs on the workplace. 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 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.

Wright:
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 and participate in compact states, not just where they first sought treatment. What other technological challenges and trends are there?

Masi:
I would say AI is extremely important to learn about it. And what,

Wright:
Are there any other technological challenges and trends that you're seeing?

Masi:
Well, I think, as I say, I think we got to get to be able to get back into the workplace technologically, however, and provide, we can provide trainings now worldwide for our companies. I mean, you take somebody like what I had have an IBM, you got employees in 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 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 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 the most, in my opinion, the most interesting thing that's occurring is that they're becoming organized and organized in groups worldwide.

Wright:
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?

Masi:
First of all, I need social workers to educate themselves about what an EAP is and what's the difference between being a social worker, seeing people in their office for mental health and when they see somebody with the EAP, when they see an employee. 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.

Wright:
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. Masi's new book, the fifth International EAP compendium can be found in the show notes section of our website. Just Google n 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.

Speaker 3:
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