A Study of Employee Assistance Programs in Higher Education Institutions

Download or read book A Study of Employee Assistance Programs in Higher Education Institutions written by Daniel Jay Madron and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dissertation, a newer understanding of modern higher education institutional EAPs is discussed. The paper begins by explaining that the goals of EAPs are to keep employees with poor health from becoming ill and to improve health toward a positive state. EAPs are defined and broken down by type, including internal, external, and hybrid EAPs. Then, the difference in the mission and supervision between academic and corporate cultures is offered. The current focus of EAPs is on mental health services instead of the earlier focus on alcohol abuse treatment. In order to form hypotheses and help create the survey, pre-survey interviews were conducted with two EAP directors. The sample consisted of EAP directors that belonged to an organization (IAEAPE) dedicated to employee assistance excellence in higher education institutions. The overwhelming majority of the respondents reported having an internal EAP, whereas nearly half of the non-respondents had external EAPs. As hypothesized, modern EAPs in public and private institutions of all sizes are focusing on mental health services, with over 85% of the respondents reporting that they offered 6 or more mental health services. Also, 76% of EAPs reported having a staff member with a social work background. It was hypothesized that larger institutions would offer more services; instead EAPs from both small and large institutions reporting offering the same amount of services. EAPs in private institutions were more likely than public ones to offer more services, and both faculty and staff were more likely to use services more frequently in the private institutions. However, faculty use EAP services much less frequently than staff regardless of size or public/private status. Whites were far more likely than any other race to be reported by EAP directors as using their services frequently. Females were also more likely than males to use the EAP services frequently. Because these groups are not using services equally, it is important that EAPs market and tailor services for these infrequent users. The paper concludes with an assessment of the current state and future direction of EAPs.