EAPs in High Demand, Helping Workers Cope
America's journalists, lawyers, investment bankers, real estate sellers, and safety professionals are all seeing significant job losses within their ranks. The situation is equally dire in England, according to the Employee Assistance Professionals Association, Inc., which has advised its members to use Freedom From Fear's National Anxiety and Depression Awareness Week (May 3–9, 2009) to educate clients about coping with those two dangers. This year's event is the 15th annual observance of that week, and the demand for EAP services and assistance from workers is very high, EAPA indicates.
Three Virginia EAPA chapters are staging a joint April 22-24 conference to help employee assistance professionals respond to the changing workforce and current economic pressures. The event at the Virginia Crossing Hotel & Conference Center in Glen Allen, Va., is sponsored by the three chapters and will include presentations on anger management, working with a corporate HR department, workplace bullying prevention, and providing assistance at a workplace going through downsizing. Contact Darrin Wagnon at 540-731-7311 or [email protected] or Teresa Picone at [email protected] for information and a registration form.
Mary Guardino is the founder and executive director of Freedom From Fear, which she started in 1984 as a small support group. FFF offers resources about anxiety and depression assistance and news about the week at its Web site. EAPA's Annual World EAP Conference, "Meeting the Challenges of a Changing World," will take place Oct. 21-24 at the Hyatt Regency Dallas hotel in Dallas, Texas.