Confidentiality is non-negotiable: A response to the new BBC allegations against the UK’s largest EAP
Client confidentiality is at the heart of counselling. It is the foundation of the counsellor-client relationship and without the trust that it enshrines, mental health support is dangerously undermined and ethically compromised.
Confidentiality helps to make counselling a safe experience, and offers the freedom for individuals to discuss issues, both personal and professional, certain that what they are disclosing is protected by confidentiality.
A new set of revelations from the BBC concerning disturbing breaches of confidentiality at a major EAP, as well as having unqualified individuals offering mental health guidance in professional settings, are practices that we at Wellbeing Partners would never engage in.
Lou Campbell, counselling psychotherapist and director of Wellbeing Partners says:
“We pride ourselves on offering high-quality, professional workplace counselling at Wellbeing Partners. Our counselling and wellbeing sessions are rooted in non-negotiable levels of confidentiality in line with the ethical framework of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy. All our counsellors and mental health professionals are members of the BACP and adhere to its ethical framework, and every one of us has at least 10 years post-qualification experience”
Workplace Counselling from Wellbeing Partners: A Comprehensive and Timely Service
Wellbeing Partners’ comprehensive in-house workplace counselling service provides the fastest and most effective solution for supporting the individual mental health needs of your employees, in your workplace or online.
The biggest challenge to supporting employee mental health is the reality that existing structures are not coping, with organisations across the UK finding their EAP services unable to meet demand. Many private medical insurers having waiting lists of more than 3 months for accessing mental health services and the NHS is completely overwhelmed with millions of adults on waiting lists of 18 months or longer, even for acute mental health issues.
This perfect storm of growing mental health issues and a huge upsurge in burnout across society combined with a lack of provision from the usual mental health support services is leaving employees without the support they need.
Wellbeing Partners’ In-House Counselling services is an efficient, effective and compassionate response to these issues and the mental health requirements of your employees. Here are the main reasons why:
We are not an EAP: Wellbeing Partners In-House Workplace Counselling Service is pay-as-you-use service (not a subscription model) that allows great flexibility for organisations and fast access to mental health support for employees.
Our Service is Comprehensive: Our counsellors offer broad mental health support that goes beyond parameters set by EAPs, where employees can be turned away if their issues are deemed too small or too complex to meet the threshold for workplace mental health support. Our workplace counselling service covers all areas of mental health and wellbeing, including anxiety, depression, insomnia and disturbed sleep, emotional dysregulation, burnout, bereavement, interpersonal difficulties at work or home and more. We also offer counselling on specialist areas such as menopause-related mental health, neurodivergent-related mental health, senior leadership mental health, all in a safe and confidential environment.
Your Own Team of Mental Health Professionals: Your organisation will be assigned a small and dedicated team of fully qualified and highly experienced counsellors who get to know your staff and are accessible at any time they are needed. Sessions can be offered in-person in your workplace, or online via secure video platform.
New Trend, New Approach: Responding to the mental health crisis requires a dynamic approach. In house-counselling is the emergent trend in workplace mental health, one that we have been offering for many years with a large and growing list of workplace clients. Our in-house counselling service is refined, effective and offers dedicated one-to-one appointments with staff in-person or online to fit with their busy schedules.
Training and Experience: Wellbeing Partners are experts at providing mental health and wellbeing support in professional settings. This is because we source and employ experts in their fields. All our counsellors are BACP registered and with at least 10 years’ post-qualification experience. They also all have extensive experience of providing counselling and wellbeing coaching in professional settings and combine unrivalled training and experience that meets your needs.
Prevention, Performance and Confidence: Our broad approach to challenges in In-House Counselling means that smaller issues can be prevented from developing into crises and more complex issues. Our counselling services focus on creating the framework and confidence that people need to maintain their mental health once the sessions are concluded, reducing likelihood of later relapses. In-House Workplace Counselling is not a luxury, but an intelligent, supportive and economical response to mental health issues. It offers both short and long-term gains for individuals and organisations.
If you would like to learn more about our workplace counselling services, either complete the form below or click here – Employee Counselling
The use of workplace counselling is usually associated with helping the workforce manage stress, anxiety and feeling burnt out. And while these are common and important issues that require attention, this understanding of the role of workplace counselling can be limiting and means that important issues can be overlooked. One such issue – employee bereavement – is often not considered in the employee counselling provision and is perhaps even seen as taboo topic for workplace discussion.
Bereavement is something we will all face but the impact it has on our work is a topic that is often kept at arm’s length. A grave face and well-meaning phrases like “I’m sorry for your loss” or “if there is anything I can do…” are frequently the extent of the support offered at work, which can leave employees feeling unsupported.
More than half of employees have said they would leave their current role if they did not receive adequate support for a bereavement, and a third of line managers would welcome more support for bereaved colleagues[i]. It is clear that employees and workplaces benefit from ensuring that those suffering bereavement have access to professional bereavement counselling during a fragile and emotionally distressing time.
Bereavement can bleed into all aspects of life, not least our work. Grief is powerful and unpredictable. It can cause sleep deprivation, disassociation, flashbacks, and powerful emotions including sadness, anger, shock and guilt. It can change the way we work, affect our concentration, diminish engagement and efficacy, sometimes making even the simplest of tasks seem like insurmountable challenges. It can also impact how we relate to our colleagues and our clients, with issues around isolation, anger and fear affecting our interactions. Without professional support, grief can continue for prolonged periods, impacting the individual and the organisation.
Offering bereavement counselling for employees is an empathetic, intelligent and economical response to mental health issues that can accompany grief. Our Bereavement Counselling Team all have extensive post BACP Qualification experience of supporting people through bereavement in the working environment. These specialist counsellors create a professional and safe space where employees can open up about their feelings, offering concrete means for individuals to process their grief whilst also building frameworks that allow reengagement with their work.
Bereavement Counselling Services are available on a regular or ad hoc basis and if you would like further information, please us at [email protected] or complete the form below:
Senior leadership roles demand a steady and calm demeanour, providing guidance under immense pressure. While the financial and status rewards of these positions can be significant, the relentless demands often create dangerous levels of stress—a serious issue that leaders themselves frequently overlook.
C-Suite executives are expected to be paragons of leadership. They must make critical decisions that shape their organisations, manage diverse teams, and drive individuals to reach their potential, all while striving for their own professional goals. Despite these unceasing demands, the understandable instances of stress and burnout often remain hidden. Over half of leaders report experiencing burnout[i], and a staggering 75% have considered leaving their role due to stress[ii]. Yet, the topic of C-Suite mental health remains taboo, with many leaders reluctant to seek help or even acknowledge the need for it.
At Wellbeing Partners, we have been providing mental health and wellbeing support to senior leaders in many organisations for over a decade. Our experience indicates that the best way to address the mental health needs of those with significant responsibilities is through a specialist counselling and mental wellbeing support service tailored to their unique challenges, which include burnout, chronic stress, overwhelm, insomnia, personal life and parenting issues, anxiety, depression, alcohol and substance misuse, neurodivergence, and interpersonal difficulties.
We understand that Senior Leadership Counselling and mental wellbeing sessions must be directly accessible, offer a fast response, maintain complete confidentiality, and provide relatable and practical support. Our team of highly qualified counselling psychotherapists possesses extensive experience in supporting leaders and addressing the common mental health and wellbeing issues they face.
For senior leaders and their HR/People support team, recognising that confidential mental health support is not a luxury but a necessity is crucial. Making decisions that support businesses and teams is an everyday part of a senior leader’s role, but the immense pressure and responsibility can and does take its toll over time. All workplaces have a duty of care to the mental health and wellbeing of their leaders too.
To learn more about our Senior Leadership Counselling service and our short masterclass, “Mental Health for Leaders,” please contact us at [email protected] or complete the form below:
Growth in specialist employee counselling service highlights shift away from EAP services
This year has seen the rapid growth in uptake of the in-house employee counselling services provided by Wellbeing Partners as companies organisations across the UK look for effective and sustainable approaches to supporting employee mental health.
This growth of workplace counselling reflects not only the acceptance of the need for organisations to support mental health at work, but also the realities that we face as employees and organisations in an uncertain world.
The past few years have been challenging to say the least. The background uncertainty created by living through a pandemic, global insecurity as well as financial and environmental problems adds to the pressures of our personal and professional lives and the ongoing sense of flux has impacted not only the way we work, but our ability carry out our work effectively.
Here in the UK, the NHS mental health provision is experiencing unprecedented demand, with record requests for mental health services. Additionally, EAPs that were not created to cope with such levels of demand, are struggling and often failing to provide the necessary support for employee mental health issues. The inability of EAPs to cope has a knock-on effect, further burdening an already overstretched mental health service, and leaving employees with nowhere to turn for help.
A new approach is required, one that puts the needs of employee mental health at its core. At Wellbeing Partners we believe that utilising our Workplace Counselling services is an efficient, effective and compassionate response to these issues and the workplace mental health demands of your team. Here are the main reasons why.
We are not an EAP: Wellbeing Partners are excellently positioned to offer the support that is needed and are set up to cope with demand in a way the EAPs are not. We are a dedicated service that has the skills, experience and personnel to realise what solution best fits the challenges faced by organisations. Our Employee Counselling is a non-subscription, pay-as-you-use service that allows a greater flexibility for organisations and quicker access to mental health support for employees.
New Trend, New Approach: Responding to the mental health crisis requires a dynamic approach. Employee counselling is the emergent trend in workplace mental health, one that we have been using for many years with our clients. Our workplace counselling service is refined, effective and offers dedicated one-to-one appointments with staff in house or online to fit with their busy schedules.
Training and Experience: Wellbeing Partners are experts at providing workplace mental health and wellbeing support. This is because we source and employee experts in their fields. All our counsellors are BACP certified and, crucially, have at least 10 years’ experience in the field. They also all have extensive experience of providing employee counselling in professional settings and combine unrivalled training and experience that meets your needs.
Accessibility of Mental Health Support: Our Workplace Counselling offers a broad service that sees no problem as too big or too small. EAPs find that because of demands placed on them they have to turn people away. Sometimes this is because their requests are deemed too small to meet the threshold for mental health support, or conversely, they are too big or complicated for the support they can offer. At Wellbeing Partners we welcome all employee mental health problems, offering a forum and safe environment for people to work through their challenges.
Prevention, Performance and Confidence: Our broad approach to challenges through our Workplace Counselling means that smaller issues can be dealt with before they develop into crises. It means bigger problems get the timely support required to help people overcome them. It increases people’s ability to engage in the workplace, to perform, whilst also receiving much needed support. Our counselling also focuses on creating the framework and confidence that people need to maintain their mental health once the sessions are concluded, reducing likelihood of later relapses.
Employee Counselling is not a luxury, but an intelligent, supportive and economical response to mental health issues. It offers both short and long-term gains for individuals and organisations. You may find it useful to introduce regular employee counselling sessions for employees, each led by a multi-qualified specialist. Alternatively urgent employee mental health sessions can be booked on a case-by-case basis, providing a cost-effective, high-quality alternative to the more familiar EAP approach.
In-house Employee Counselling Service from Wellbeing Partners
Wellbeing Partners’ in-house employee counselling service provides the fastest and most effective solution for supporting the individual mental health needs of your employees, in your workplace or online.
Companies and organisations across the UK are finding their EAP services unable to cope with demand, many private medical insurers with waiting lists of more than 3 months for accessing mental health services, and an NHS completely overwhelmed with millions of adults on waiting lists of 18 months or longer, even for acute mental health issues.
This perfect storm of growing mental health issues and burnout across society combined with a lack of provision from the usual mental health support services is leaving employees without the support they need.
Wellbeing Partners’ In-House Counselling services is an efficient, effective and compassionate response to these issues and the mental health requirements of your employees. Here are the main reasons why:
We are not an EAP: Wellbeing Partners In-House Employee Counselling Service is pay-as-you-use service (not a subscription model) that allows great flexibility for organisations and fast access to mental health support for employees.
Your Own Team of Mental Health Professionals: Your organisation will be assigned a small and dedicated team of fully qualified and highly experienced counsellors who get to know your staff and are accessible at any time they are needed. Sessions can be offered in-person in your workplace, or online via secure video platform.
New Trend, New Approach: Responding to the mental health crisis requires a dynamic approach. In house-counselling is the emergent trend in workplace mental health, one that we have been offering for many years with a large and growing list of workplace clients. Our in-house counselling service is refined, effective and offers dedicated one-to-one appointments with staff in-person or online to fit with their busy schedules.
Training and Experience: Wellbeing Partners are experts at providing mental health and wellbeing support in professional settings. This is because we source and employ experts in their fields. All our counsellors are BACP registered and with at least 10 years’ post-qualification experience. They also all have extensive experience of providing counselling and wellbeing coaching in professional settings and combine unrivalled training and experience that meets your needs.
Accessibility: Our In-House Counselling offers a broad service that sees no mental health issue as too big or too small. EAPs are increasingly turning employees away if their issues are deemed too small to meet the threshold for mental health support, or conversely, they are too complex for the support they can offer. At Wellbeing Partners we support all your employees no matter what their issue, offering a forum and safe environment for people to work through their challenges.
Prevention, Performance and Confidence: Our broad approach to challenges in In-House Counselling means that smaller issues can be prevented from developing into crises and more complex issues receive the timely support they deserve. Our counselling services focus on creating the framework and confidence that people need to maintain their mental health once the sessions are concluded, reducing likelihood of later relapses. In-House Employee Counselling is not a luxury, but an intelligent, supportive and economical response to mental health issues. It offers both short and long-term gains for individuals and organisations.
Would you like to become a Mental Health First Aider? Our next two day mental health first aid courses takes place on 21st & 22nd August and 25th & 27th September (dates tbc) – online and interactive with our nationally-accredited MHFA instructor. This course trains you as a certified Mental Health First Aider, giving you:
An in-depth understanding of mental health and the factors that can affect wellbeing
Practical skills to spot the triggers and signs of a range of mental health issues
Confidence to step in, reassure and support a person in distress using the Mental Health First Aid action plan
Enhanced interpersonal skills such as non-judgemental listening
Knowledge to help someone recover their health by guiding them to further support – whether through self-help resources, internal support such as EAP, or external sources such as their GP
An understanding of how to keep themselves safe while performing their duties
Format
This is an online course delivered in a live and highly interactive format by our nationally-recognised and accredited instructor
Learning takes place through four live training sessions, spread across two days, with self-learning activities in between.
Each session is built around a Mental Health First Aid action plan
We limit numbers to 16 people per course so that the instructor can keep people safe and supported while they learn
Takeaways
Everyone who completes the course gets:
A certificate of attendance to say they are a Mental Health First Aider
A manual to refer to whenever they need it
A quick reference card for the Mental Health First Aid action plan
A workbook including a helpful toolkit to support their own mental health
Getting Started
Enter your details below or call us on 020 3951 7685 to get started
ANXIETY – the theme of Mental Health Awareness Week 15th to 21st May
If you’ve noticed that you’re more anxious recently, then you are not alone. The last three years have seen a global rise in anxiety and anxiety disorders, and this is hardly surprising. Our daily life has been infused with uncertainty, with the fallout of the pandemic, war in Europe, cost of living crisis and ongoing environmental issues all placing an endless strain on our resilience and resources.
For many, anxiety has begun to play a larger role in their lives. The emotional side of anxiety – feelings of fear, sadness, frustration and isolation amongst others – increasingly shape our decisions, thought processes and emotional responses. And the impact is not only personal, as it can spill over into our professional lives, affecting our ability to focus and work effectively. The added pressure of struggling to meet our professional responsibilities can feed into and exacerbate the anxiety.
It is imperative, for our own mental wellbeing and for our ability to engage professionally, to find effective ways to reduce anxiety. But this can be both daunting and challenging. When we are anxious, our response is often to engage in a struggle with it, a struggle that includes various understandable but unsatisfactory responses such as distraction, suppression and denial. This struggle can leave us feeling exhausted and even make the anxiety worse.
Although it may seem counter intuitive, to manage anxiety, we have to get to know it better, to understand what it is trying to tell us. Psychologist Prof. Mark Williams argues that we must “befriend our anxiety”, seeing it not as the enemy to defeat, but something that wants attention, to be cared for. This approach can give us back a sense of agency and control in the face of the overwhelm that anxiety brings with it.
Managing anxiety can be challenging so getting professional support is a good step. Counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy are all clinically proven ways of managing and reducing anxiety. With professional support we can discover how to relate differently to the emotions, sensations and thoughts that shape and sustain our anxiety. We can learn how to ride out the waves of anxiety rather than be pulled under by them, and over time we learn to develop the resilience we need to calm down more easily from anxiety.
These three tips can help you begin your journey of facing anxiety and flourishing.
1. Talk: Anxiety can make us feel isolated, creating the sort of social and behavioural retreat that deepens the experience of anxiety. Communicating about how you are feeling, particularly the emotions that are triggering the anxiety such as fear, anger, frustration, shame, guilt, confusion etc, can often help us to “contain” the anxiety more easily. If you have a friend or loved one who is a good listener, they could be a helpful person to talk to. Professional support is also really helpful – Try your organisation’s counselling support service.
2. Thoughts are not facts: Anxiety is often fuelled by negative thoughts like “catastrophising” or abusive self-talk – thoughts that can keep us locked into mental scenarios that serve only to make us feel worse. If we can take a mental step back and see our thoughts as just opinions rather than facts, it can help us be less caught up in the thought processes that sustain our anxiety. A professional can help you to understand how your thoughts might be triggering your anxiety, and teach you to relate to your thoughts in a less alarming way.
3. The breath is your ally: When anxiety strikes, we can feel overwhelmed. A simple tip to slow the “stress response” is to consciously focus full attention on the breath. Concentrate your breath on the area of your body where you feel the anxiety most intensely (eg chest, belly, shoulders) and for a few moments, purposely slow and deepen both the in breath and the out breath. Doing so stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, sending a “stand-down” signal to the alert centre of the brain!
Anxiety workshops, courses and sessions for your employees:
From Anxious to Calmworkshop – 60 minute group workshop
Mindfulness for Anxietyworkshop – 60 minute group workshop
Facing Anxiety and Flourishingcourse – 4 x 60 minute group course
Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapycourse – 8 x 60 minute group course
Confidential One to One Counselling – Anxiety counselling with our specialist mental health therapists
Book us to run an anxiety workshop, course or session
If you’d like to book us to run a workshop, course or session please enter your details below or contact us for more information.
Men’s Health Week presents a terrific opportunity for employers to bring awareness to health issues that affect men disproportionately, and to encourage male employees to think more about their health and wellbeing.
Wellbeing Partners’ selection of relevant workshops include:
Men’s Health – presented by our award-winning men’s health educator and campaigner Peter Baker, this 60-minute live and interactive session encourages men to engage in discussion and learn about different aspects of physical and mental health that are most likely to impact men such as heart disease, prostate and other cancers, high blood pressure, erectile dysfunction and other sexual health issues, diabetes, weight, alcohol and substance misuse, depression and more. The session promotes the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, providing simple, straightforward advice, and encourages men to think more about their wellbeing and access health services when required. (In-person or online)
Men’s Mental Health – presented by one our fully qualified counselling psychotherapists and men’s mental health specialists, this 60-minute live and interactive session focuses on removing stigma and shame around men discussing and seeking help for mental health issues, provides effective tips and techniques for how men can improve their mental health and wellbeing, and signposts men to the variety of support services they can access if required (including promoting services such as an EAP).
Mindfulness for Men – presented by our James Milford, our head of behavioural sciences and a fully qualified mindfulness-based cognitive therapist, this 60-minute live and interactive session offers your male employees an ideal opportunity to learn about the science behind mindfulness and to try a range of meditations as a highly effective form of DIY mental healthcare. Using evidence-based and scientifically proven mindfulness and meditation techniques to reduce stress and anxiety, overcome unhelpful thinking patterns, improve sleep and benefit overall health. (In-person or online)
One to One Wellbeing Sessions – our team of fully qualified wellbeing coaches include five male therapists, who we can make available to your employees during Men’s Health Week, or at any time of the year! These sessions offer tailored, confidential mental health and wellbeing support directly to your employees, including those who might be otherwise reluctant to access mental health support, based on their individual requirements. (In-person or online)
Employee Health Screening – Know Your Numbers – our team of registered occupational health nurses come to your workplace to provide employees with individual health checks onsite. Tests include cholesterol and blood sugar levels, blood pressure, waist:hip ratio & BMI; cardiovascular, discussion around alcohol consumption, exercise, smoking and diet, plus overall health. Each employee receives their personalised results in a graphical and easy to understand report, with signposting to specific health services where relevant. We also provide your organisation with an anonymous overview of the health of your employees, and a comparison with national average. (In-person)
Did you know?
Diabetes Week runs from the 8th to the 13th of June. Our fully qualified nutritional therapists present a range of relevant workshops such as ‘Sugar Awareness: Reducing Sugar from your Diet’ and ‘Nutrition and Healthy Eating’.
Healthy Eating Week runs from the 14th to the 20th of June and focuses on helping us be more aware of what foods we need to increase and avoid to balance our diet and eat more healthily. Our workshops include “Top 10 Tips for Healthy Eating’; ‘All about Breakfast’; as well as Cooking Demonstrations and ‘One-to-One Nutrition Sessions.
World Yoga Day is on the 21st of June, a day for fun and learning about all the different types of Yoga and its benefits. We offer 45 minute sessions in-person or online with our fully qualified yoga teachers. All welcome from beginners to intermediate level. Yoga mats are provided for in-house sessions.
Getting Started
Enter your details below or call us on 020 3951 7685 to get started
In recent months, there has been a very sharp increase in the number of employees seeking workplace counselling support for personal relationship problems, including infidelities, abusive behaviours, separations and divorce. This represents a shift away...
Client confidentiality is at the heart of counselling. It is the foundation of the counsellor-client relationship and without the trust that it enshrines, mental health support is dangerously undermined and ethically compromised. Confidentiality helps to...
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