Employee Assistance Program Responses to Large Scale Traumatic Events

Summary

This article provides a summary of interviews with several national, regional, internal and external Employee Assistance Program providers as well as employers. The focus of the interviews was to ascertain both similar and dissimilar experiences of EAPs and employers in responding to large scale traumatic events. In particular, this article summarizes how the delivery of crisis response services has been impacted by the terrorist attacks of September 11th and how this has influenced the way in which EAPs and employers view the role of the EAP in responding to subsequent traumatic events. The experiences summarized herein reflect the fact that EAP has increasingly been a sought after partner in disaster preparedness planning and response post September 11th. In addition, this paper summarizes a common understanding that effective EAP responses to large scale traumatic events must involve a flexible approach using intervention methods best suited to the type of incident and that it must entail a dual focus on both the organization and the workforce.

Key Words:

• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• crisis response
• critical incident
• trauma