Model for an Employee Wellness Project

Abstract

A pilot project designed to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of a health-related employee assistance program was implemented at the University of South Carolina. One hundred interested participants were randomly selected from university faculty and administrative staff. The project utilized the following methods: 1) psychophysical tests including health risk appraisals, health knowledge levels, physical activity assessments, psychological batteries of tests, and biophysical data obtained through a treadmill stress test, percent body fat, blood analysis, blood pressure, and pulmonary function; 2) individual health consultants who served to inform, model, and encourage participants to practice healthful behaviors; 3) group programs related to self-care/wellness promotion techniques; 4) mass media contact to repeat and reinforce healthful behaviors; 5) wellness-oriented social activities, such as fun runs, meatless covered dish dinners, etc.

Results of the project included statistically significant pre/post change in weight, percent body fat, physical activity scores, health knowledge levels, pulmonary function, and self-esteem.

The positive, enthusiastic group attitude and sustained project involvement all suggest the effectiveness of the model as an employee health intervention program.     

Implementing solutions to barriers to on-site HIV testing in substance abuse treatment: A tale of three facilities

Due to the scarcity of resources for implementing rapid onsite HIV testing, many substance abuse treatment programs do not offer these services. This study sought to determine whether addressing previously identified implementation barriers to integrating on-site rapid HIV testing into the treatment admissions process would increase offer and acceptance rates. Results indicate that it is feasible to integrate rapid HIV testing into existing treatment programs for substance abusers when resources are provided. Addressing barriers such as providing start-up costs for HIV testing, staff training, addressing staffing needs to reduce competing job responsibilities, and helping treatment staff members overcome their concerns about clients’ reactions to positive test results is paramount for the integration and maintenance of such programs.     

The Parenting Task: Parent's Concerns and Where They Would Seek Help

ABSTRACT

Governments are concerned to promote positive parenting but it is difficult to know how and where to target the necessary support. How should we listen to the concerns expressed by parents themselves? Social work and health care professionals and those involved in developing parenting programmes tend to base their interventions on their experiences with families already in crisis. This paper reports on a survey of the views of two groups of parents: a community sample and a small group of parents involved in a young parent's project. Issues, which concern the parents, are identified as well as consideration of which agencies might be best placed to address these. Parents were most likely to approach their children's school or doctor for information, advice, or support. Parents were found to be reluctant to approach social work agencies.     

Evaluating employee assistance policy in an HMO-based alcoholism project.

One aspect of successful employee assistance program (EAP) implementation is the adoption of a formal, written policy, reflecting company commitment to EAP guidelines and goals. This study of criteria predictive of such policy adoption was conducted at the occupational alcoholism project of a New England health maintenance organization (HMO). Data on nearly 400 organizations contacted by occupational program consultants (OPCs) over a 20-month period were collected by questionnaire and interview. One third of these organizations adopted employee assistance policies and set about establishing formal programs. Stepwise multiple regression is the principal method used to pinpoint the correlates of policy adoption. Two of the most important of these are the attitudes of contact persons within the organization toward alcoholism and employee assistance programs, particularly their admission of alcohol problems within their social networks; and the consultants' persistence and marketing skills. The adopting organizations also had reputations for being progressive, and actively concerned about employee welfare; they tended to be large, their executives autonomous, and their union membership rates high. Inhibiting policy acceptance were fears that a written policy would jeopardize the reputation and image of the organization, and that an employee assistance program would remove internal control of personal procedures. The adequacy of the evaluative data and methods are discussed, and recommendations are offered in the interests of streamlining the efforts of OPCs and of achieving greater penetration of targeted organizations.     

Application Review of Journey Mapping

Journey Mapping is a unique Internet-driven program evaluation tool supporting both qualitative and quantitative data collection. Successful implementation of the tool requires minimal training. The Journey Mapping website is updated on a regular basis to include new features; all users log on and work with the latest version. Journey Mapping supports collection of program outcome data, as well as data for program refinements. Realizing the full potential and benefits of Journey Mapping may depend on integrating the system with staff job designs and the overall mission of the program.     

Changing attitudes about self-injury prevention management: lessons learned

In the behavioral health environment, nurses often use continuous staff monitoring and, at times, physical restraints, to manage the severity of patients' self-injury. Both options put staff in control, are the most restrictive in nature, and can be financially draining on the hospital's budget. This can result in negative reactions by both patients and staff. It is important to develop a program that will empower patients to control their behavior and allow staff to be aware of their perceptions and attitudes toward patients who self-injure. This article describes the leadership initiative that drove the development, training, and implementation of a self-injury prevention project and the lessons learned by staff.     

The context of program implementation and evaluation: A pilot study of interorganizational differences to improve child welfare reform efforts

This article contributes to the growing literature on evaluation and implementation science by examining the interaction between staff perceptions of organizational strength with perceptions and indicators of program fidelity. As part of a pilot project related to the evaluation of the Family to Family initiative, a survey was distributed to employees within two urban child welfare agencies with a total of 410 respondents across both sites, for a combined response rate of 72.2%. Survey results were analyzed both in terms or respondents' perception of their agency as well as in relation to measures of program performance and workload. Multivariate models show that organizational indicators are the most significant and positive predictors of perceived program implementation. Specifically, staff who positively perceived the availability of information within their agency also believed that the programs were well implemented in their agency. These findings suggest that as the value of program changes are articulated within an organization, the implementation of the initiative is perceived to improve.     

Parent Management Training, Relationships with Agency Staff, and Child Mental Health: Urban Foster Parents' Perspectives

Many foster parents are ill prepared to meet the behavioral needs of children placed in their homes. Research suggests they lack training in evidence-based behavioral interventions and feel unsupported by child welfare professionals. Given the complex needs of foster children and increased rates of placement disruption for foster children with behavior problems, implementation of effective interventions is essential. However, little is known about foster parents' receptivity to these types of interventions. In this qualitative study, we examine urban foster parents' perceptions of the specific elements of parent management training (PMT), an evidence-based treatment for disruptive behaviors that teaches parents to improve desired behaviors and decrease oppositional behaviors by rewarding positive behaviors (positive reinforcement) and responding to negative behaviors with mild, consistent punishments such as timeout or a privilege removal. We present data from four focus groups (N = 38). While the questions focused on parent's perceptions of PMT, responses often related to parent interactions with agency staff. Four strong themes emerged from the data. First, foster parents discussed a need for more support and training in how to address children's behaviors, but also had concerns that some PMT discipline techniques would be ineffective based on their past experiences with foster children. Second, they described how staff communication skills and allegations of child abuse could affect parents' motivation to continue fostering. Third, they expressed a need for more detailed information about children's histories and visits with biological families as the lack of information contributed to difficulty in meeting foster children's needs. They suggested that joint training of foster parents and staff in the intervention could improve their ability to work together to support the child's positive behaviors. Finally, parents reported little involvement in child mental health services and doubted the effectiveness of the mental health services their foster children received.     

Transforming the culture of caring

Direct care staff struggle with the decision of when to physically intervene with patients. There is a widely held belief that they are expected to place themselves in danger of harm to prevent patients from hurting themselves or others. In this acute mental health care setting, an educational program was developed, using principles of adult and transformational learning, to dispel the idea that getting hurt is part of the job. The Staying Safe program strongly discourages staff from physically intervening alone and promotes staff getting enough help and having a plan. Staff are encouraged to interact with patients in helpful ways and to respond to patient requests in ways that do not increase frustration or evoke anger. There has been a positive response to the training program, evidenced by changes in the way staff think about their jobs and a reduction in the number of assaults and injuries to staff.     

The Internet as a crisis management tool: a critique of banking sites during Y2K

In 1999, the international banking industry built web sites to address Y2K as a potential crisis that could cause worldwide disruption of information exchanges. Banks, which rely on automated systems to process time-sensitive information, were concerned that their services would be compromised, if computer systems failed due to Y2K-related problems.Although the Y2K crisis did not come to fruition, it is helpful to examine this unique occurrence to understand how organizations can use the Internet for crisis management. This study found that the banking community put more effort into providing Y2K information online than using web sites to interact with constituencies and learn about their concerns.     

Mentoring for Educational Success: Advancing Foster Care Youth Incorporating the Core Competencies

A collaborative relationship among three organizations developed a mentoring project using social work students (mentors) and independent living program (ILP) foster youths (mentees). The goal was to increase the mentees' awareness of educational possibilities beyond high school graduation while analyzing the mentors' learning as defined by the Council on Social Work Education core competencies. This pilot project paired mentors with ILP youths in this experiential opportunity conducted on a university campus. The students, acting as positive role models applying social work skills, engaged in an effort to improve the mentees' educational outcome, which would ultimately lead to self-sufficiency.     

Empowering part-time nurses in the treatment of depressed inpatients.

1. With the consistent number of part-time nurses in the workforce, hospitals would benefit by more actively integrating them into professional nursing practice. 2. Empowering part-time nurses by affording them the opportunity to provide primary care has the potential to effectively use part-time personnel, decrease the workload for full-time staff, offer more flexibility in scheduling, and result in savings for hospitals in terms of nursing recruitment and retention. 3. This program has successfully developed and implemented a model of primary nursing that places three part-time nurses on a team capable of handling two to three primary patients. The success of this model has been attributed to excellent communication, trust in one another's professional skills, and nursing expertise.     

The Longevity of Community Aging Initiatives: A Framework for Describing NORC Programs’ Sustainability Goals and Strategies

Naturally Occurring Retirement Community Supportive Services programs (NORC programs) aim to bring together stakeholders within a local area with a large number of older adults (e.g., a neighborhood or apartment building) to facilitate activities and services that promote aging in place. Despite enthusiasm for these programs, there is ongoing concern regarding their long-term sustainability, especially as federal funding to support NORC programs nationally has dwindled in recent years. This exploratory study aimed to develop a framework to describe NORC programs’ sustainability goals and strategies. As part of a statewide study in New Jersey, this study drew on data from semi-structured in-depth interviews with staff of 10 lead organizations that represented 15 NORC programs. Using a grounded theory analytic approach, findings revealed three types of sustainability goals: continuing the program indefinitely within the lead agency (described by eight organizations); integrating the program functions across other organizations (described by one organization); and defining the program as a finite project (described by one organization). Lead organizations implemented and developed their programs in ways that reflected their goals. This framework can be used to guide efforts to maintain, expand, and evaluate NORC programs and related community aging initiatives.     

The employment service and vacancy durations

In the literature, there are few examples of studies analyzing the impact of labor market programs on vacancies. This article presents the results of a study of the impact of personnel increase at Swedish employment offices on vacancy durations. The evaluation method in the study is quasi-experimental. The main results of the study are as follows: (a) The increase of employment office staff members reduced their vacancy durations by approximately 2 days, and the probability that a vacancy is cancelled from the register is 1.17 times higher for the program offices; and (b) this effect is too small for the increase of staff members to represent a socially efficient use of resources and for a positive outcome in a public finance context.     

Adolescents' Need to Talk About School and Work in Mental Health Treatment

Summary

School-aged adolescents spend much of their time in school. As a result, it is important for mental health practitioners who work with adolescents to address their clients' educational concerns and risks. Based on data “mined” from an adolescent intake questionnaire (Adquest), this study explores how adolescents view their educational life and their need to address educational risks clinically. Likewise, the world of work, also important to adolescents, is discussed. Overall, adolescents are concerned about their educational risk factors, want to be employed, and want to talk about both with clinicians in a mental health context.     

Building,Engaging, and Sustaining a Continuum of Care From Harm Reduction to Recovery Support: The Rutgers Alcohol and Other Drug Assistance Program

Since 1983, the focus of the Rutgers Alcohol and Other Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) has been developing policies, training staff to identify students at risk, developing and implementing evidence-based screening and brief interventions, providing short-term counseling by professionals trained in alcohol and other drug abuse to assist students beyond brief interventions, identifying effective treatment for college students, developing a campus recovery program, on-campus recovery housing, and other supports for students in recovery. This article presents a case study of the Rutgers ADAP program, of building and sustaining a program committed to engaging students in both evidence-based risk reduction interventions and an on-campus recovery community given their stage of change and motivation to make changes. Historical milestones are described as part of a creative model for intervention. We identify the challenges of integrating substance abuse recovery into campus mental health programs, and of integrating recovery into other university communities.     

AFRA confronts gender issues: the process of creating a gender strategy

The Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA), a nongovernmental organization in South Africa affiliated with the National Land Committee (NLC), seeks to redress the legacy of unjust land dispensation during the apartheid period. AFRA is the first organization within NLC to deal openly with issues of race and gender; this process has been conflictual, however. At gender training workshops conducted by White development workers, many staff expressed the view that sexism is an alien Western issue. Moreover, gender sensitivity was interpreted by Black staff as an assault on their race and cultural identity. The staff itself was polarized on racial grounds, with White managers and Black field workers. Staff further expressed concerns that a gender perspective would dilute AFRA's focus on land reform and alienate rural women who want male household heads to continue to hold the title to their land. The organizational structure was reorganized, though, to become more democratic and racially representative. The 1995 appointment of the first field worker assigned to address women's empowerment in both the organization and target communities refueled the controversy, and a gender workshop led by a psychologist was held to build trust and unity. Staff moved toward a shared understanding of gender as an aspect of social differentiation. AFRA has since committed itself to develop an integrated gender strategy sensitive to people's needs and fears.