Strategic Specialty Partnerships

Summary

Rapid advancement of both research and practice in the field of organizational crisis intervention has brought demands for more substantial breadth and much greater depth in EAP efforts to serve their clients in this critical domain. Once dominant practices (e.g., debriefing groups) have been brought strongly into question while those approaches with solid empirical backing (e.g., trauma focused CBT) remain relatively underrepresented in the intervention armamentarium of most EAPs. Other vital aspects such as organizational crisis planning and longer term recovery management have not been as well developed as might be desirable with respect to human resource impacts, and EAPs need to acquire capability and capacity to assist their clients in these areas as well. This paper reviews how recent advances impact the provision of organizational crisis response and discusses the growing need for specialty partnerships to ensure that information, skills, and resources can be efficiently and effectively deployed to ensure that EAPs are positioned to meet and exceed both client expectations and advancing standards of practice in this rapidly evolving arena.

Key Words:

• Crisis response
• recovery management
• trauma debriefing