-Hi, everyone. This is Nancy Aebersold,
HERC's founder and executive director
of the central office.
I would like to thank today's webinar participants
as well as our speakers,
and I'm especially thankful for HERC's multi-year alliance
with the U.S. Department of Labor's
Office of Disability Employment Policy,
otherwise known as ODEP,
which makes today's webinar possible.
Today's topic is extremely important.
We know that approximately one in five adults
in the U.S. experiences mental illness in a given year,
and approximately one in 25
will experience a serious mental illness
that substantially interferes with one
or more major life activities such as work.
So as employers, it's crucial that we understand mental health
accommodation
so we can be successful in creating truly diverse
and inclusive higher education workplaces.
I would now like to intro Brett Sheats,
who is the National Project Director
with the Employer Assistance
and Resource Network on Disability Inclusion,
otherwise known as EARN.
Thank you, Brett, and take it away.
-Thank you, Nancy. I appreciate it.
Hello, everyone.
My name is Brett Sheats.
It's my pleasure to welcome you to today's webinar,
Creating Inclusive Higher Education Work Environments
for People with Mental Health Disabilities.
As Nancy said, this is being hosted
by the Employer Assistance
and Resource Network on Disability Inclusion,
or as we're more often called, EARN, in collaboration
with the Higher Educational Recruitment Consortium,
otherwise known as HERC.
I have the pleasure of serving
as the National Project Director for EARN,
and we're so pleased that you could join us today
to discuss this important topic,
and we're thankful to have the opportunity
to join forces with HERC to host this event.
I'd like to start by noting that immediately
following today's webinar,
you will be asked to complete a survey about your experience.
EARN encourages you to please do so in order
to help us continue to provide
substantive webinars moving forward.
Your feedback is crucial for us.
For those of you who may not know...
Next slide, please.
Keep going. Go a couple more, Ed.
And one more.
Thanks.
For those of you who might not known,
EARN is designed to be an employer's special source
for guidance, tools and resources on fostering
a disability-inclusive workplace culture.
We're a resource for all employers,
public and private, including universities
and other higher education organizations
who are seeking to recruit,
hire, retain and advance people with disabilities.
We're funded by the U.S. Department of Labor's
Office of Disability Employment Policy,
or ODEP, under a cooperative agreement
with the Viscardi Center,
and we bring together a collaborative of partners
with expertise in technical assistance,
training and research.
Next slide, please.
In higher education, as in all industries,
workplace policies and practices that foster employment success
for people with mental health conditions
are actually sound management practices
that benefit all workers,
and by extension, their employers.
Indeed, many of the same supports that help people
with mental health disabilities thrive at work,
such as employee assistance programs,
health coverage, flexible work arrangements
and reasonable accommodations are common-sense strategies
that help all employees
in a college or university environment give their all,
whether they are in a classroom, lab or office.
What's more, creating a more welcoming environment
where people with mental health conditions
feel safe to self-identify as people with disabilities
may help advance a higher education institution's
overall disability inclusion goals.
In this webinar, participants will learn
about effective approaches
for providing employees with mental health conditions
what they need to perform their best on the job,
and raise awareness across their institutions
about the importance of adopting an inclusive work culture
that fosters mental health and well-being.
Most of you are joining us through the WebEx platform,
and you're hearing the audio
by voice-over IP through your computer.
The audio is also available over a phone line.
If you'd like to listen to today's events in that way,
you can call 415-655-0045,
and the conference code is 668445922
followed by the pound sign.
For technical support during the webinar,
please post your issue within the Q&A window on your screen.
If you're having any issues loading WebEx
or downloading add-ins,
please contact WebEx directly --
1-866-229-3239.
A copy of today's presentation slides
are available for download from AskEARN.org.
This webinar is also being recorded,
and you will receive a follow-up e-mail
within the next week with details
on how to access the archived event.
Please note that we will be accepting questions
from the audience during today's discussion.
You can submit your question by typing them into the Q&A window
or through the chat feature on your screen.
You can also submit questions via e-mail
at AskEARN@viscardicenter.org.
You can also submit questions via Twitter by using the hashtag
#AskEARN or by direct message to @AskEARN.
We're live captioning this webinar,
which you can follow along within the captioning window
at the bottom of your screen.
It's just below the Q&A window on your screen.
You must open the window titled "Media Viewer"
to display the captioning.
And some of you may be also interested to know
that this webinar has been approved
for one HR general recertification credit hour
through the HR Certification Institute
as well as through SHRM.
Details on receiving these credits
will be sent to participants
within a week following this event.
Stay tuned for an e-mail from the Viscardi Center
on behalf of EARN for that information.
Next slide, please. All right.
So we have our audience
assessment question before we get started.
I'd like you to answer this if you would.
It provides us a baseline of your knowledge and comfort level
with our topic today.
All of your responses are anonymous,
and answering the question is essential to help us
understand your needs, so take a moment to answer it.
That question is, "On a scale of one to five --
one is very little knowledge,
five is extensive understanding --
how would you rate your knowledge
and understanding of strategies
for making higher education work environments,
or any work environment, for that matter,
more inclusive of people with mental health disabilities?"
Go ahead and take a moment to answer that question.
All right.
We'll just take a few seconds here to tabulate your answers.
Our platform is just taking a second to tabulate this.
Hold on with us.
Well, I'm not seeing it pop up.
We'll come back to that a little later, and then --
Oh, there we are. There we are.
It just took a little bit of time.
So it looks like we're around middle of the road to...
about 47% saying they're right in the middle there,
and about 27% at two.
So we'll revisit this question at the end of the WebEx webinar
and see if it's made a difference.
And we really hope that the information you hear today
will make a difference.
So lets go to the next slide, please.
Great.
So we'll get started with today's presentation.
It's my pleasure to introduce our first speaker,
Melanie Whetzel.
She's Lead Consultant, cognitive and neurological team
at the Job Accommodation Network,
otherwise known as JAN.
Melanie, go right ahead and kick us off.
-All right. Thank you.
The Job Accommodation, just as Brett said, better known as JAN,
is the leading source of free, expert and confidential guidance
on workplace accommodation and disability employment issues.
Working towards practical solutions
that benefit both the employer and the employee,
JAN helps people with disabilities
enhance their employability,
and shows employers how to capitalize on the value
and talent that people with disabilities
add to the workplace.
Next slide, please.
Here we have a bit of background information on JAN,
for those of you who may not be familiar with
who we are and what we do.
JAN was established in 1983 as a free, national service.
From Fortune 500 companies to entrepreneurs,
JAN has served customers across America
and around the world for over 25 years.
We specialize in job accommodations
and the employment provisions of the Americans
with Disabilities Act and related legislation
such as the Rehabilitation Act.
We also provide information on self-employment
and entrepreneurship options
for people with disabilities.
Consultants can assist callers at any point
in the interactive process,
from explaining what the process includes
to helping pinpoint and solve difficulties at specific steps.
We can answer specific questions
and give targeted technical assistance,
as well as provide comprehensive resources.
All calls are confidential,
so callers can freely explore their options.
JAN is very easy to use and offers numerous ways
to obtain personalized assistance anytime, anywhere.
Get your questions answered by toll-free phone
calls that include TTY.
Visit the web for more than
200 disability-specific publications,
as well as our searchable online accommodation resource,
which is called SOAR.
And that enables users to explore accommodation options
for different disabilities in workplace settings.
Jan's on-demand online e-mail service
provides customers with individualized e-mail
responses to questions about accommodations in the ADA.
Connect with Jan through Twitter, Second Life, Facebook
and other social networks,
or use our increasingly popular online chat feature.
We offer live and archived training,
just like you're receiving here today,
and we work as your partner in the employment
and retention of employees with disabilities.
Next slide, please.
So I just wanted to talk a little bit about disclosure,
and disclosure is when you divulge
or give out specific personal information
about your disability.
When disclosing, it's important to provide information
about the nature of the disability, the limitations,
or how the disability affects the capacity to learn
or perform the job effectively and accommodations
needed in order to do the job,
or in the hiring process,
accommodations that are necessary
in order to complete the application process
and successfully interview.
You'll need to have a strategy,
which simply means that you want to think about it ahead of time
and have a plan about when to disclose the information,
and how much you're willing to tell about your disability.
Disclosure is generally not required under the ADA
until an accommodation is needed.
Employers who provide a culture of acceptance
and the willingness to assist employees
with accommodations help them
to become more willing to disclose earlier
rather than later.
Next slide, please.
So now we answer the question,
"Why would someone with a disability choose to disclose?"
There are several reasons why.
The first reason would be to ask for accommodations
or modifications to the work environment
that would help enable the individual
to complete the essential functions of the job.
We have accommodation examples to share just a bit later.
The second reason to disclose would be
to receive benefits or privileges of employment.
The ADA requires employers to provide reasonable
accommodations
so that employees with disabilities
can enjoy benefits and privileges of employment
equal to those enjoyed by similarly situated employees
without disabilities.
Benefits and privileges include, but are not limited
to organizational-sponsored trainings,
services such as credit unions, cafeterias, lounges,
gymnasiums, auditoriums, transportation
and also parties or other social functions,
such as those celebrating retirements and birthdays
and outings or picnics.
If an individual with a disability
needs a reasonable accommodation in order to gain access to
and have an equal opportunity to participate
in these benefits and privileges,
then the employers must provide the accommodation
unless they can show an undue hardship.
For example, an employee with a major depressive disorder
has difficulty attending large meetings.
The accommodation of allowing the employee to attend meetings
by phone conferencing
might be necessary to provide the employee
with the same benefit of the information
gained from the meeting that everyone else received.
Briefing the employee one-on-one about the meeting
could be an alternative accommodation.
The third reason to disclose a disability
could be to explain an unusual circumstance.
For example, an office employee who works
on the first floor of the building
is unable to use the stairs
due to post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD
from an assault that took place in the stairwell.
She does not need to disclose her inability to use the stairs
because she has not been required
to use the upper floors,
but once the HR department moves to an upper floor
she may have to disclose her PTSD
and the inability to use the stairs in the event
that the elevator is out of service.
An effective accommodating for this situation might be that
if the elevator is out of service
when she needs to meet with the HR Department,
the appointment either be rescheduled
or moved to a location on the first floor.
Next slide, please.
So under the ADA, an individual may disclose a disability
and ask for an accommodation either verbally or in writing.
JAN recommends that you do so in writing
so that you have the documentation
that you did indeed disclose
and ask for an accommodation, and when you did so.
Many state agencies and institutions
will have their own paperwork.
So who do you disclose to?
The employer, a supervisor or manager
and/or a human resource representative,
including the Reasonable Accommodation Office
or the ADA Coordinator can all be persons
an employee would make their disclosure to.
Oftentimes, an employee doesn't want their supervisor or manager
to know about a medical condition.
In that case, it's wise to disclose to someone in HR.
In many cases, a manager or supervisor
may need to be informed of the process
and be involved in the accommodations,
but wouldn't need information on the medical condition.
Next slide, please.
Okay.
Here we're just going to talk briefly
about performance and conduct.
Under the ADA, an employer is not required
to lower a performance or conduct standard
that is applied uniformly to employees
with and without disability.
However, an employer may have to provide
a reasonable accommodation to enable an employee
with a disability to meet the standard.
Ideally, employees will request reasonable
accommodation before performance or conduct problems arise,
or at least before they become too serious.
Although the ADA does not require employees to ask
for an accommodation at a specific time,
the timing of a request for accommodation is important
because an employers does not have to rescind discipline,
including a termination or an evaluation
warranted by poor performance or by misconduct.
It is generally preferable that the employee initiate
any discussions
on the role of disability.
Ideally, employers should discuss performance
and conduct problems
before they become too serious
in order to give the employee
an opportunity as soon as possible
to address to the employer's concerns.
An employee who is on notice
about a performance or conduct problem
and who believes the disability is contributing
to the problem should evaluate
whether a reasonable accommodation would be helpful.
An employee should not assume that an employers knows
about a disability
based on certain behaviors or symptoms,
nor should an employee expect an employer
to raise the issue of the possible
need for reasonable accommodation,
even when a disability is known or obvious.
Next slide, please.
All medical information should be treated the same,
regardless of how it was obtained,
whether during post-offer examinations
or by voluntary disclosure.
It should be kept in a file separate
from the employee's personnel file,
and in a location that is accessible
only to authorized personnel.
Generally, only Human Resource personnel
are entitled to the medical information.
However, in its Title I technical assistance manual,
the EEOC or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
identifies a few exceptions, which are as follows --
Supervisors and managers may be informed
about necessary restrictions on the work or duties
or an employee and necessary accommodations.
First aid and safety personnel may be informed
when appropriate if a disability
might require emergency treatment,
or any specific procedures are needed
in case of a fire or other evacuation.
Relevant information may be provided to government officials
investigating compliance with the ADA,
to state workers' compensation offices
and to insurance companies
where required for health or life insurance.
In some cases, supervisors may need to know
the specific disability so accommodations
can be effectively implemented.
In such cases, the employers should check with the employee
before sharing any medical information with the supervisor
to explain the reason for doing so.
For example, if an employee with epilepsy needs accommodations
relating to what to do in response to a workplace seizure,
the supervisor will likely need to know
that the employee has seizures.
Otherwise, there may be no way to implement a plan of action.
In many cases, however, the supervisor will not need
to know the specific disability
to implement the accommodation.
For example, individuals with mental health impairments
sometimes need accommodations such as schedule modifications,
additional breaks and job restructuring.
The supervisor probably does not need to know
the employee's specific medical condition or the limitations
in order to provide the accommodation,
but may only need to know what accommodations are needed.
Next slide, please.
Here we have our accommodation examples.
Our first one is a college professor
who had difficulty with concentration and focus,
and needed to reschedule departmental meetings
and classes he taught to after 11:00 a.m.
to allow for uninterrupted morning hours for planning,
studying and administrative duties.
After careful consideration of the effectiveness
of the accommodation for the professor,
and determining that the schedule changes
would not cause a hardship,
the employers provided the requested accommodation.
Next slide, please.
Our next example is a newly hired counselor
who could perform the essential functions of the job,
but she had difficulty in training.
Due to short-term memory deficits
associated with a mental health impairment,
she had difficulty moving through the modules
at the scheduled pace.
She was accommodated with extended training,
a more relaxed schedule for the completion of the training,
extra time with the trainer,
materials to take home to study
and an extended timeframe for completion of each module.
Next slide, please.
So our next accommodation example is a professor
who requested the accommodation of an office with windows
because natural lighting is needed and helpful
for her seasonal affective disorder.
Because professors with more seniority were offered
the offices with windows,
JAN suggested the use of full-spectrum lighting
that has nearly the same effect as the natural lighting,
and can be found in task lighting, desk and floor lamps,
light boxes and torchères,
as well as replacement bulbs for existing lighting.
Next slide, please.
And this is our last accommodation example.
Here we have a part-time professor with ADHD,
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,
and anxiety who was having difficulty planning new courses
when the schedule changed quickly
and he was required to do so under tight time constraint.
He requested that he only be put on the new courses
that were firmly scheduled ahead of time
in order to give him time to prepare.
If he were to teach courses that were suddenly added,
he asked that those be the ones
he had previously taught and planned for.
Next slide, please.
All right.
If you need more information on the ADA
or workplace accommodation,
please feel free to contact us at JAN.
You can reach us toll-free at 800-526-7234 for voice
or 877-781-9403 for TTY,
or visit us on the web at AskJAN.org.
You can also contact us through Skype and text
and find us on Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn and other social net -- networks.
Excuse me.
We hope to talk to you soon.
Thanks for making JAN a part of this webinar.
And now I'm going to turn this back over to Brett.
-Thank you, Melanie.
That was really informative, really appreciate that.
And now it's my pleasure to introduce our next speaker,
Kristen Abell, Web Manager
in Strategic Marketing and Communications
at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
She's also co-founder of The Committed Project,
which focuses on, or is committed to,
if you will, advancing awareness about mental health issues
in the higher education environments
and supporting higher education professionals
whose lives are affected by them.
Kristen, go ahead and take it away.
-Thank you, Brett.
Good morning, everybody, or afternoon,
I guess, for some of you.
Go ahead and, Ed, if you want to switch to the next slide.
I want to tell you a little bit about my story
because I do think that there is a lot of power
in sharing our stories
and helping to eradicate the stigma
around mental health issues.
So first, I just want to tell you
that I have had depression and anxiety
for about 25 years or so,
and have been treated for it on and off throughout my life.
Of course, when I first discovered
this when I was a teenager,
people didn't really talk about mental illness.
So understanding that a lot of the people
that are in your workplace
may have grown up during that same time
and don't talk about mental illness,
or don't feel comfortable talking about mental illness,
I think is really important.
On the flip side of that, we do have a generation of people
who are in the workplace now
who have a very different level of awareness around privacy,
and they may out themselves before they understand
how their coworkers understand mental illness.
That lends to a little bit more complex environment,
but it is something to be aware of.
In my current workplace, I have been able to be very open
about my mental illness,
but that hasn't always been the case.
However, because I am more open about it,
other people in my office have felt the ability
to be more open about it as well,
and I've also had supervisors at various jobs
who have disclosed their own experiences
with mental illness with me as well.
It can be really hard to be vulnerable with your employees,
but if this is something that you experience,
I feel like this is an area, as supervisors,
where we can allow our employees to feel safer
and to understand a little bit about what we're doing
and what sort of accommodations we also may need.
Again, that's something that you just kind of need
to feel out for your office
and whether that's appropriate, but it is, I think,
something that can be really helpful.
So again, I just want to emphasize
that understanding each person's story
in your office can be helpful,
and it can help others feel comfortable
sharing their stories as well.
Go ahead and flip to the next slide, please.
Obviously, as I talked about, if you haven't had mental illness,
it can be hard for somebody with that to explain the emotions.
A lot of people will ask me, "Oh, are you sad, like,
do you not smile because you have depression?"
Which is not accurate at all.
I just don't walk around with a smile on my face all the time.
It's hard to say that depression isn't necessarily
about being unhappy or being sad,
that it's so much more than that,
and so it can be really important for those
that you're working with to understand
that you may not know what they're talking about,
but that you're willing, still, to work with them
and to make accommodations as necessary.
It can also be very difficult,
and probably many of you have heard people
talk about talking a mental health day,
and understanding what a mental health day
is for somebody who actually does have a mental illness
is very different than somebody who is just using it flippantly,
and just wants a day to take a break.
Some people really need that.
People who, like, I mentioned, like myself,
who have grown up during a time
where there is a lot of stigma around mental illness
may be really tentative
to disclose
to our supervisors, especially.
I really appreciated what Melanie was saying
about talking to HR
and that that's an important use for us,
but on a lot of campuses, HR is so far from us
that we don't even think about how we can use them,
or they're not immersed in our everyday life,
and so, when I talk to a lot of my colleagues
who haven't disclosed on their campuses,
it's because they don't even know who in HR
to talk to or where to share that.
And depending on how you do...
what sort of nonverbal cues that you give,
so even if it's, you know,
when somebody is talking about a mental illness,
the faces that you make or the reactions that you have.
Also our language around mental illness,
extremely important to keep in mind what we're saying there.
If I talk to somebody and they're constantly
saying things like,
"Oh, my gosh. That person is so crazy,"
or, this is one of my favorites,
when somebody talks about going postal or anything like that,
I know that, for myself,
that's probably not going to be somebody that I disclose to.
So being aware of your language
and how that impacts others as well as the nonverbal cues
that you give can be really important
and really helpful for those who work in your office.
Next slide, please.
As I mentioned, that stigma that's there may prevent people
from even seeking help,
so it's a very good possibility
that you have people in your office
that are experiencing mental illness
that have not gotten help for it,
and so don't even know that they need accommodations,
or don't know that they even need to see somebody
because they don't understand what's going on with them.
It's sort of like, you know, if you have an allergy or a cold
and you don't know what it is.
You don't even know how to treat it because you're just not
even sure what you're dealing with yet.
So that's something just to kind of be aware of.
And one of the things that I occasionally hear people say
is, you know, "How do I talk to somebody
if I think they need help?"
And I think talking to them, again,
about how their illness...
You know, illness, it's physical or it's mental,
but they're all illnesses,
and it can be really important to help them understand
that it's perfectly okay, that it's not in their control
and that they may need help for that.
Again, I go back to that whole idea
of normalizing mental illness
and how important it is to make sure
that people know that they can ask for help,
and having an environment of openness
and being really careful of how you're verbal and nonverbal cues
are indicating what you're open to
is an important part of that.
Next slide, please.
So I mentioned earlier that I sought help for depression --
mostly depression, although I experience anxiety too --
on and off throughout my life.
At various points in my life, this has looked different.
I don't know that I would say that I...
I don't think there's a cure for depression,
but there is a way to maintain it,
sort of like with, I also experience asthma.
It doesn't just go away, but I have ways to treat it
that help me keep it under control.
That maintenance can look different for different people.
I personally take medication for mine.
I know some people do therapy.
Some people don't take medication or therapy
but live by yoga and meditation.
There's multiple, multiple ways to treat mental illness,
and that maintenance plan looks different for everyone.
I liked the mention also, earlier, of the lights,
the different-spectrum light.
I have something called a Happy Light at my desk,
and I now have started seeing other people
in my office have those,
and that's, again, part of that environment
where I felt comfortable bringing that in
and setting that up
and being able to answer questions about it.
Again, though... So the medication
that I'm on right now works great,
seems to do really well.
That hasn't always been the case,
and the other issue there is,
of course of what your insurance may or may not cover.
So I had to switch meds, and during those times,
it can be extremely challenging,
so while I may be maintaining my depression just fine right now,
there are times when I'm not,
and I may need accommodations during those times
that I don't normally need.
That can kind of go up and down
depending on how that person is working to maintain.
And again, that's just something to be aware of.
Next slide, please.
So, again, I'm just going to keep reiterating this
because I think it's possibly the most important point
that I can make is that stigma,
the stigma that a lot of us have grown up with
will likely impact if somebody discloses.
In workplaces where I have really felt that strongly,
where there have been comments made,
where it's been very much a work first,
personal life second attitude,
where, you know, it's, "Work 60 hours a week.
I don't care if you're stressed out.
Keep working,"
I know that I can't disclose in those workplaces,
and so being aware of what you're saying
and what sort of standards you have in place,
I think will play a large role in that.
It will also impact how people ask for help.
Maybe I will ask for, you know, a sick day,
but I won't tell you that it's a mental health day
because I know that that's not really acceptable here.
I'll just say, you know, "[Coughs]
Sorry, I have a cold," or something.
It's frustrating to me if I have to do that
because it's not being honest,
and of course I want to be honest in my workplace,
but I will also protect myself and my job.
So, again, I think it's just good to reflect on how stigma
is visible in your workplace.
Next slide, please.
As I mentioned earlier,
different generations perceive stigma differently,
so those who grew up at the same time that I did or earlier,
it's still pretty strong with us.
I'm somebody who is out about my mental illness,
and I still have to rethink what I say sometimes
or how I act or react to those around me.
And so, on the other hand, I know a lot of the people
that I work with who are younger,
there's a less of a filter there,
and they will be more likely to share.
Some of those people who are my age and older
may never tell you anything about it
and, of course, if they're able to do their jobs,
that's perfectly okay.
But just know that there are different levels of comfort
with being willing to disclose.
Next slide, please.
I think the most important thing you can do
is develop that culture of open-mindedness
and psychological safety,
and you can do that by being vulnerable,
by allowing people to share their stories.
If you have a story, share your story.
The Committed Project that Brett mentioned earlier
that I am a co-founder of,
that was kind of our goal to begin with
is to share stories of professionals
in higher ed who experience mental illness.
We spend a lot of time helping students with mental illness,
and we don't always confront the fact
that there's a lot of stigma among ourselves
about mental illness,
and so the idea was to share our stories
and to normalize mental illness,
to get people to see that it's everywhere,
you know, lot's of people have this.
Next slide.
And then, finally, just recognizing,
as I mentioned, ways that language --
Language is a big thing with me.
I'm a writer in my spare time, and so of course
I spend a lot of time on that, but keep it in mind
that we don't want to use mental illness terms
as synonyms for things that are bad, absurd or ridiculous.
Saying, "That's so insane," "That's crazy,"
"I'm so depressed," "I'm so OCD."
Things that you hear in common slang
even now can affect those around you
if they really are experiencing mental illness.
Thank you.
I'm done, Brett. -All right.
Thank you so much, Melanie.
Let's go to the next slide.
All right.
And I appreciate all of that.
We're going to now introduce our final speaker, Tom Ruggieri.
He's the coordinator of the University of Maryland's
Faculty Staff Assistance Program at the University of Maryland.
As the name suggests, this program is
the University of Maryland's employee assistance program.
The floor is yours, Tom.
-Thank you, Brett. Hello, everyone.
I'm really excited to be a part
of this extremely informative webinar.
My name is Tom Ruggieri, and I've been managing
our university's employee assistance program
since 1988.
We provide assessment, referral
and short-term counseling services
to our 14,000 employees and their family members.
Our FSAP is run by two full-time social workers.
My goal over the next 10 minutes is to describe why I believe
that EAPs are an ideal resource for all employees,
but particularly for those with mental health
and substance abuse diagnoses
and how we can be of assistance to them.
I would like to start by saying that I grew up in the 1960s
at a time when community mental health centers
were a great resource for anyone in the country
to reach out and receive mental health
and substance abuse counseling service for free.
My first internship as a graduate student
in the early 1980s
was in a South Baltimore Community Mental Health Center,
where unemployed dock workers could drop in
and receive help at no charge.
Sadly, those days are behind us.
I believe that EAPs are the closest thing
we now have to community mental health centers of the past,
and are utilized every day by employees around the world,
not only helping them to feel better and be more productive,
but also helping their employer at the same time.
I will describe the services we provide in our program,
just one example of how an internal employee
assistance program can help.
Next slide, please.
We provide up to 10 free and confidential visits
for assessment, referral and counseling.
We're located in the Health Center, which is --
it's a center part of campus.
And I think people often associate the Health Center
with confidentiality,
and that gives us a good perception
by most of our employees.
Many of the people who come to see us do so
for workplace issues,
often involving an issue with another employee,
and those circumstances, I think what's more accurate
is to describe our service as coaching and consultations.
And those situations often end up in a mediation session
where we're able to help facilitate communication
between the two employees.
We discovered in 1993
that a lot of the reasons people were coming in,
and the stress that they were struggling with was financial.
They couldn't pay their rent.
They couldn't pay their mortgage.
Their electricity was shut off.
They had no heat.
Their car was in the shop.
They had no way to get to work.
So we started an emergency loan fund
where we can pay an employee's bills up
to $1,000 at no interest,
and they have 6 months to pay that back.
We've actually lent $800,000 in loans up to this point.
We do a number of presentations around campus
on things from substance abuse
to depression to dealing with difficult people
to managing stress.
I'm in the process right now of training 800 facilities'
employees on substance abuse,
and I loved Kristen's idea of trying to get people
who struggle with these issues to talk.
We actually have two employees who are in recovery
who speak at the end of my presentation,
and you can hear a pin drop,
and they really have had quite an impact.
And employees do come to see us as a result of that,
so it's a very useful tool.
And then, finally, we provide debriefings in situations
where there's been sort of a traumatic event
that's occurred on campus, usually a death.
Our most common presenting issues are in mental health,
mostly mood disorders, anxiety and depression,
stress, workplace conflicts of all types and substance abuse.
Our primary objectives are to help employees
identify the issue,
refer them for treatment and/or meet with them ourselves,
especially for those
without transportation
or good insurance.
We also often find ourselves in the role of advising employees
on how to best talk with their employer about their issues,
especially if they are long-term mental health ones.
Whether or not to claim a mental health disability,
as you've heard earlier, is often controversial
and fraught with many complications.
Amongst them, stigma and how the employee will be treated
once the supervisor has this information.
Every situation is as different as the people coming in,
and we try to give the best advice
based on employee's unique set of circumstances.
I think it's one of the advantages
of being an internal EAP
because we know the workplace.
We know the departments.
We know the players, and that helps us
to give the best advice possible.
The most expensive issue we have to deal with is substance abuse.
Employees abusing alcohol and/or drugs
tend to have higher rates of absenteeism, accidents,
health insurance utilization, worker's comp claims,
and require more attention from a supervisor
than they typically have time for.
Because of this, most EAPs tend to spend much more time
with our substance-abusing employees in both the referral
and ongoing monitoring of their progress.
Next slide, please.
So I've probably broke every rule on PowerPoint slides
with this one, way too many words,
but I tried to provide some statistics
that point out the prevalence of substance abuse
and mental health issues in the workplace.
It's a costly set of issues,
and ones that most employers should want to address,
as the cost of turnover for these issues
is much higher than paying for an employee assistance program.
When you consider the cost of terminating an employee
and losing their years of experience and expertise
along with the cost of recruiting,
hiring and training another employee to take their place,
it's almost always less expensive to assess
and treat the current employee
than to terminate them and start all over.
The other reason I like to include
is that we've seen people with mental health
and substance abuse issues
at every level of every organization --
chairs, deans, administrators,
police, chefs, everybody you can think of,
so if the approach is to terminate them
because of these problems,
we're going to lose a lot of employees.
I want to highlight the third bullet point on this slide,
which states that the general prevalence of illicit drug use
in the United States is 8% of the workforce.
What this number fails to include
are those who are addicted to prescription drugs.
In 2015, there were approximately 13,000 deaths
due to heroin overdoses, but in that same year,
there were a little over 20,000 overdose deaths
due to opioid prescriptions.
So if we were to include the problematic prescription
drug abusers in this percentage,
we're obviously looking at a much larger number.
Next slide, please.
I also wanted to point out that if we include
the overall category of stress to the mix,
we see that this issue points out
even more costs of unaddressed issues at work,
both in terms of lowered performance, sick leave,
utilized health insurance claims and presenteeism,
which is that idea that you're at work
but not really performing.
Next slide, please.
I was asked to read this actual comic
from one of my favorite cartoonists, Gary Larson.
It's a picture of a couple guys working on
what looks to be a bomb factory,
where the one guy says to the supervisor,
"Well, it's a delicate situation, sir.
Sophisticated firing system, hair-trigger mechanisms
and Bob's wife just left him last night,
so you know his mind's not exactly into this."
This slide points out that it's not always a standard
mental health or substance abuse diagnosis
that plays a part in an employee's inability
to focus at work,
which is why EAPs offer family and couple's counseling,
as well as an opportunity to receive coaching
on the myriad of workplace issues.
The next two slides, if you could switch to them,
I just wanted to point out,
we do a survey of every employee who comes in,
and we get about a 35% response rate.
And one of the more useful pieces of data from this survey
is the fact that about 65% of our employees feel
that whatever they presented to us
not only interfered with their ability to do their jobs
but, if you go to the next slide,
that their performance improved
as a result of their coming to us.
So we tend to highlight this to Management whenever we can
so that they realize the costs of our program is well worth it.
And then I have one last slide, if you could go to that one,
which points out some of the more recent research
that has been done.
It's a study that was done in 2015,
the first study of its kind,
and the findings confirmed the value of EAPs
to help employees address personal
and work-related concerns
that are affecting their job performance.
This was a large employer of about 80,000 employees
from a variety of diverse socioeconomic groups.
They matched 156 employees
receiving employee assistance services
and compared them to 188 non-EAP receiving employees,
and at follow-up, what they determined was that employees
who received employee assistance services
demonstrated significant reductions in depression,
anxiety, absenteeism and presenteeism
compared to a matching group of employees
who did not receive those services.
So I will end with a summary of two of the points
I hope you will take with you,
and one is that it's a safe estimate
that close to 50% of most workforces
are made up of employees who, on any given day,
are not as focused on their jobs as they could be,
and this focus is likely compromised
by various stressors,
mental health and substance abuse issues.
And the second point is, though I'm clearly biased,
I believe that EAPs represent a vehicle
for providing support for these employees
in a cost-efficient manner
that's not only helpful for the employee
but also friendly to the organization's bottom line.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak,
and I hope this information proves to be helpful.
Throwing it back to you, Brett.
-Thank you so much, Tom.
Really appreciate the presentation.
I'm sure that the information will be of great benefit
to all of our participants.
Next slide, please. All right.
So before we move on, if you'd like to get in touch
with any of our presenters,
here is contact information for all of them.
Once again, these slides will be available on AskEARN.org
in our webinar archive,
so no need to scribble it down right now.
You'll be able to get that information
off the web in the future.
Next slide.
Here is some great resources.
You see EARN as well as JAN on there, ODEP's web page,
HERC's web page, a link to The Committed Project
as well as the link to the University of Maryland
Faculty Staff Assistance Program.
Once again, this will be available via our website.
Next slide, please. All right.
So we have time for just a couple questions.
Just a note, if you did submit a question
and we don't have time to get to it today,
we will answer those in writing,
and it will be in our webinar archive as well.
So we will move first to a question for Melanie.
"Melanie, if an employee submits an accommodation request,
for example, for a standing desk,
and after having his workspace evaluated,
decides to withdraw the accommodation request,
does the employer need any documentation?"
-That's a good question. That would depend.
You know, if the evaluation that was done proves
that the desk is not needed
and it's obvious in that sense,
then the employer probably doesn't,
but it depends on what the employee
and the doctor said in the first place.
An employer may request that they have
that information from the doctor.
We tell employers, you know, to rely on the medical information
in order to base their accommodation decisions,
so it may become necessary in some situations.
-Thank you. -Mm-hmm.
-So, Kristen, there's a question submitted for you.
That question is, "What do you feel the biggest challenges
are that higher education institutions
or higher education professionals
face relative to attitudes about mental health
in other, more traditional workplaces?"
-Sure.
I think one of the biggest challenges we face is that
because it's not just ourselves that we're working with,
we're working with students,
there's a level of care that we're responsible
for that can add additional stress
to those who experience mental illness,
and so there's definitely some additional pieces
there that we're carrying around that somebody
who is doing marketing
or doing other types of business may not experience.
And we also have this, very much a students-first mentality.
However, when you're experiencing mental illness,
if you don't at least sometimes put yourself first,
you will suffer from that.
So I think those are the things that we need to be aware of,
and if we don't educate people about that,
then when you do put yourself first,
you get penalized for it on the job.
-Thank you.
Appreciate the answer.
One question that we've received from a number of folks,
everyone that has attended the webinar will receive an e-mail
stating that they did attend the webinar.
If you were looking to receive some sort of credit
other than the HR credit that we have registered this for,
that e-mail should suffice.
If it does not, you can go to our website,
and there's a place where you can contact us.
Send us an e-mail once you take a look at that e-mail
that you receive.
If you need something more, just let us know,
and we'll do whatever we can,
but I do believe that e-mail should suffice
for what folks are looking for.
We'll go to the next slide, please.
Great.
So next slide after that, please.
All righty.
So before we close out, I'd like you guys to, once again,
answer this audience assessment question.
It's the same question
I asked you at the beginning of the webinar,
and we're curious to observe any differences
in the group's response.
Once again, please do answer it honestly.
Everything is anonymous.
Once again, on a scale of one to five,
one being very little understanding
and five extensive understanding,
how would you rate your knowledge
and understanding of strategies
for making higher education work environments,
or any work environments,
since you are not representing a college or university,
more inclusive of people with mental health disabilities?
Go ahead and take a moment to answer that.
And we'll just wait a moment for the program
to tally up the results.
And there we go.
Looks like we shifted more to the three to four range,
which is great.
This is a huge topic,
and we've just barely been able to scratch the surface here,
but we do hope that the information
that was presented was useful.
We'll go ahead and go to the next slide, please.
All righty.
So it's been a truly excellent discussion.
One thing that I want to remind you --
You will be asked to complete a brief survey
about your experience with this webinar.
We strongly encourage you to please do
so in order to help us continue to provide
substantive webinars moving forward.
Your feedback drives the topics
that we address in the future with our webinars,
so I can't tell you how much it helps us out
if we can hear your thoughts so we can improve what we do.
Please be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
You can do all that right from the AskEARN home page.
And once again, AskEARN.org is the host of no-cost tools,
resources and services on recruiting, hiring,
retaining and advancing employees with disabilities.
Melanie, Kristen, Tom, thank you so much.
Your presentations were amazing,
and we appreciate you taking the time
to share your knowledge today.
Nancy, thank you for starting us off,
and to HERC for partnering with us
to present this webinar to all of you today.
And finally, thanks to you, the audience, for joining us.
We hope you enjoyed today's discussion.
And just to remind you once again,
EARN greatly values your input,
and we hope that you will complete the survey
that will be sent to you via e-mail
at the conclusion of this webinar.
Until next time, this is Brett Sheats signing off.
Thank you for joining us today.
Take care.
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