Help at hand for life's challenges

Counselling is done in confidence. Pic Getty.

Many New Zealand companies contract with employment assistance programmes to have counselling support ready for their employees if needed. It's not unusual to find it listed as a "perk" of the job in recruitment advertising.

What's on offer is, however, not always advertised well. I have heard: "I didn't go to counselling through my company because I wanted a real counsellor", or "How can I know that the counsellor is not going to tell my employer what I said?".

Employers face increased obligations under the Health & Safety at Work Act 2015 (which came into force on April 4, 2017) requiring employers to monitor the health and welfare of their workers, and to provide information and training to protect workers from risks to their health and safety. So supplying counselling help can be part of a company's strategy to adhere to this Act.

Various employment assistance programmes contract these services to employers. They include OCP, Vitae, EAP Services and more — and each has its own way of working but, generally, three or more sessions are offered to staff to work on whatever they are dealing with.

Issues are not necessarily workplace ones — people go to these counsellors for all sorts of challenges, including couples counselling, relationship breakups and parenting.
Most employers and contractors will allow a few more sessions if needed, but that's not a given — so my advice would be that if you have an issue that needs more than three hourly sessions, be prepared to see the counsellor privately or find your own private practitioner to work with.

Sometimes the counsellor you see may refer you on to another service if deemed necessary.

For some, the short intervention of three sessions can be really helpful for getting a new perspective on things and getting tools that can help with moving forward.
The majority of employment assistant providers insist the counsellors they refer clients to have full membership of a professional organisation and to have achieved this, the practitioner needs to be fully qualified and have strong ethical standards. So the idea the counsellors who do this type of work are not "real counsellors" is untrue. It would be a good idea, however, to find out whether the person you've been referred to is a counsellor, psychotherapist or psychologist.

I had the experience many years ago of being referred to someone with a Human Resources background — so not a counsellor at all. For what I was requesting (looking at my transferrable skills) that was applicable.

As far as confidentiality is concerned, this is of course really important to both client and counsellor. Professional bodies all have clauses on confidentiality in their code of ethics, and no ethical practitioner would agree to share what's said in the counselling room with an employer. The only exception would be if the employee has requested or agreed (under no pressure) to this.

The employment assistance programme providers refer to employees who go through them with a number not name — the details they request from the counsellor are around what company and branch the person works for — things that help with reporting.
A checkbox form is filled out by the practitioner saying what the person has come to counselling for (i.e. relationship issues, workplace issues, friend issues, grief etc). This is merely for the programme provider's reporting needs and statistics.

Of course, as with all counselling, if the practitioner fears for a client's safety or the safety of someone else, they would need to report it. This is about the onus of care.
So if you want this sort of counselling, how you do to get it?
First find out if your employer is contracted to one of the providers — many small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) are not.

If your company has such a contract, you can access short-term counselling through either self-referral or through a workplace manager. You or your manager would just need to call up the provider to and ask them to refer you to a counsellor.
Generally the company will ask which geographic area you want to see the person in (organisations contract counsellors all over New Zealand) and an idea of what you are needing to address. This is so the counsellor you're referred to has experience working with your issue.

The organisation will generally then give you links to counsellors you may want to see.
You then phone the individual (after perhaps checking their website / web presence to see if you think you can work with them) and make an appointment.
Some of these employment assistance providers however employe people in-house and will refer you to one of their practitioners.

●Val Leveson is an Auckland-based counsellor who, as part of her practice, takes referrals from an employment assistance provider.