Make use of your EAP

My parents were having trouble with my sister who lived with them. Over almost a year there had been all sorts of problems which including her getting herself in debt, losing multiple jobs and she had been stealing money from them for a number of months. They were at their wits end. They love her and wanted to support her, but the stress she was putting them under was having a real impact on their health as well as the financial impact of the money she was taking.

They wanted to ask her to leave their home, to move out, but were not sure about how to go about this and where she would go. They didn’t want her to be homeless but had no idea what her options might be if they threw her out and to be honest I had no idea either. They were pretty upset and I was trying to support them, but none of us had been in a situation like this before.

Our Employee Assistance Programme includes legal advice and also counselling support. I decided to give them a call to ask them about how we might ask her to leave, what her options would be and what she might need to demonstrate to social services that she needed help/somewhere to live. Initially I spoke to their legal team who were able to explain that we could just ask her to leave but that by putting it in writing she would then be able to provide this letter to the social services team as evidence that she couldn’t remain at my parents. They talked through the potential options that my sister would have around, finding a new place and how social services would most likely move forward. Talking to a professional was really good, I was able to phone up at 9pm at night and talk to someone who could explain the principles of what is involved.  To be fair most of the information I had found on some different websites but when you are unsure it was good to have what I thought I had found identified/confirmed by them.

My parents and I met with my sister and asked her to move out. We gave her 4 weeks notice and explained the reasons why we were doing this. She got in contact with social services, who in turn spoke with my parents to check that there was no chance that they were going to change their mind. She found a studio flat, which social services inspected and they set up payments with the landlord and helped her get a budget/money plan in place. She moved out 3.5 weeks after we asked her to leave.

The impact was really good for my parents, whilst they were still worried about her, the level of stress reduced drastically with her being in their home. And for my sister, after the initial shock of being asked to leave, she got settled into her studio flat, then she found another job and has started to get back on her feet. We still have worries and concerns but using the EAP was definitely a good decision and one that many people doesn’t realise they have. All alliance partners staff have access to an EAP and all provide similar services and support.

If you have challenges and problems at work or in your home life they might well be able to help you with advise and support.

Anonymous, Manager, @one Alliance