The IPU recently hosted a webinar on Mental Health and Wellbeing, which explained the benefits of the VHI Employee Assistance Programme, which is a confidential service, and is available for free to IPU members. Benefits include counselling, parenting coaching, career coaching, and supports across a range of life events. In this article, Siobhán Kane, Editorial Manager, provides an overview of the webinar, and explains that these services are also available to the entire pharmacy team, and their family members.
The IPU hosted a webinar on the topic of Mental Health and Wellbeing on 8 May in collaboration with Tanya Cody, VHI Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) specialist and Séamus Ruane, community pharmacist and positive psychology practitioner. The VHI Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is available as part of your IPU membership. It is a free, confidential service, and is designed to help you cope with all of life’s ups and downs. The new VHI EAP portal provides free access to useful information and a wide range of resources that will support you, not only in your working day, but in your day-to-day life. The VHI EAP has recently been updated and the webinar provided information on the features available as part of your membership.
Séamus Ruane also provided information on the Wellbeing in the pharmacy IPU training programme, and provided useful wellbeing tips that may positively impact you and your team’s practice. Mr Ruane writes a regular column in the IPU Review, and you can read this month’s column on page X.
There are a range of services available via the EAP. Full details of all the services are available at ipu.ie > Members Support > Mental Health and Wellbeing, but below is a brief overview of the service. The EAP aims to support across a range of issues:
The key elements of EAP are that it is independent, confidential, and is available for your entire family. The range of services are:
Counselling is also available, with 220 experienced counsellors available nationwide, who are accredited by the Irish Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy. All employees can avail of six sessions face-to-face, or unlimited telephone counselling per issue. If you are dealing with several issues at the same time, they are treated as single topics, and you can avail of six sessions for each issue per year. This also applies to family members.
EAP is also available to provide extra support and information for everyday parenting challenges. All employees and family members can avail of up to six telephone coaching sessions. Issues that can be dealt with in these sessions can include:
If you have questions or concerns about your career and performance and want to explore these work-related issues in a confidential manner, then Vhi’s career coaching service is available. The focus of the sessions will depend on where you are in your career, and what changes you wish to make, but can include:
As with the other services, this service can be useful as well for the pharmacy team, and is available for pharmacy students working with you.
As outlined above, one of the core components of EAP is confidentiality. People often cite privacy as a concern for not contacting the service, but please be aware that your confidentiality is assured.
To access the VHI portal follow the instructions available at ipu.ie > Members Support > Mental Health and Wellbeing. You can also phone directly on 1800 995 955, or email eap@vhics.ie.
Siobhan Kane
Editorial Manager, IPU
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