Employee Assistance & Counseling Center

The UAB Employee Assistance & Counseling Center is a benefit offered by your employer to help employees identify and resolve problems, which may or may not be impacting their job performance. The UAB Employee Assistance & Counseling Center offers individual counseling, couples and family counseling, supervisory training, and consultation to reach these goals. The UAB Employee Assistance & Counseling Center is a confidential employee assistance and counseling program designed to provide employees and their immediate household members with resources for resolving work related and personal problems. We help you clarify issues, explore options and find solutions for successful work/life integration. We help people work through many issues, including:

• Stress at work or home
• Couples, relationship or family problems
• Substance use disorder aftercare
• Grief and loss
• Loneliness
• Communication problems
• Depression or mood swings
• Self-esteem issues
• Anxiety
• Stress related to finances
• Divorce

Employees in the following organizations and members of their immediate household: UAB, UAB Medicine (including UAB Medical Center Hospitals (UAB Hospital, UAB Hospital Highlands, UAB Hospital Spain Rehabilitation, UAB Hospital Center for Psychiatric Medicine, UAB Hospital Women and Infants Center, UAB Callahan Eye Hospital), UAB Medicine Huntsville, UAB Medicine Montgomery, UAB Medicine Selma, Health Services Foundation (HSF), The Kirklin Clinic and Health System Administration) VIVA Health, Homewood City School System, i3 Academy Charter School and Tarrant City School System employees.

Those also eligible for EACC services include...

• Displaced employees — eligible for 6 months of services from last date of employment, not to exceed 12 sessions in the calendar year
• Terminated employees — eligible for 3 months of services from date of termination, not to exceed 12 sessions
• Employees who voluntarily leave their job — eligible for 3 months of services from last date of employment, not to exceed 12 sessions in the calendar year
• Retired employees — eligible for 6 months of services from last date of employment, not to exceed 12 sessions in the calendar year
• Household members of displaced, terminated, leaving voluntarily, and retired employees — eligibility for services is the same as employee

The UAB Employee Assistance & Counseling Center provides services for all eligible persons, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or veteran status. If for any reason the counselors of the UAB Employee Assistance & Counseling Center determine that an individual’s needs exceed the services or expertise available at the UAB Employee Assistance & Counseling Center, the counselors will work with the individual to identify an appropriate referral to meet their needs.

If you would like to know if you are eligible for Employee Assistance & Counseling Center services, please call 205-934-2281.

The UAB Employee Assistance & Counseling Center provides confidential employee assistance and counseling to help you achieve successful work/life integration. Services offered at the UAB Employee Assistance & Counseling Center include:

• Counseling for individuals, couples and families
• Financial wellness counseling
• Supervisor training and consultation
• Stress management resources
• Campus-wide screenings
• Educational programs and events
• Referrals to resources in the community, when appropriate
• Case management services

For more details about our services, visit the Core Services section of the EACC website.

At the first in-office visit, your assigned counselor will review your intake information and then begin to gather more in-depth information and history to explore and develop sufficient background to help move towards your identified goals.

Meeting these goals and objectives will likely require strong efforts. In addition, you may experience feelings of discomfort, which are inherent in change. Couples and family counseling may lead to outcomes viewed as undesirable by one of the participants, especially if only one partner is participating in counseling (i.e., a spouse's decision to divorce).

At times the counselor may recommend that your needs would be better served through a referral to another counselor within the Employee Assistance & Counseling Center or through an external agency. In the event that this situation occurs, these options will be thoroughly explored with you. Children under the age of 15 may be referred externally for individual counseling unless seen within the context of family therapy.

Progress will be regularly evaluated in terms of whether counseling is effective in attaining the desired objectives, and by comparing your current situation with your situation when counseling began. Counseling efforts will terminate when the sought-after goals are sufficiently achieved. This will be determined through mutual agreement among the participants and counselor. If at any time you decide to terminate the counseling relationship, it is recommended that you inform your counselor in order to tie up loose ends and to allow for feedback concerning the counseling process.

Counseling sessions are generally 50 minutes in length, and depending upon your current needs and will be scheduled at an interval decided upon by you and your counselor. The number of sessions that will be required to meet your goals is hard to determine.

You are expected to attend all appointments as scheduled and on time. If you are unable to attend a scheduled appointment, it is important that you call as soon as possible to cancel that appointment, as there are others who are also in need of our services. If you fail to show up for 2 scheduled appointments without calling to cancel, we may be unable to schedule another appointment until a minimum of 6 weeks has passed.

As a client of The UAB Employee Assistance & Counseling Center, we ask that you maintain the confidentiality and anonymity of other clients that you encounter while visiting our offices.

For the protection of our clients and staff, please remember that no weapons of any kind are permitted in this building and that no acts of violence, threats of physical harm, or threatening or abusive language will be tolerated. Such behavior may result in arrest and/or termination of Employee Assistance & Counseling Center services.

If you have questions or concerns regarding your counseling objectives, your counselor, or the counseling process, it is your right and responsibility to bring those concerns to your counselor in the counseling sessions.

Every consultation with the UAB Employee Assistance & Counseling Center is strictly confidential. Records related to your visits are stored off site and available only to Employee Assistance & Counseling Center staff. Information is not available for nor included in personnel records. Information about you is protected by law and not released to supervisors, coworkers, friends or family without specific permission approved by you in writing. Exceptions to this are dictated by law in cases such as risk of harm to self or others.

For more details see the EACC Confidentiality Statement.

The Online Mental Health Screenings are a fast, free and anonymous resource for individuals who might be experiencing symptoms of depression or other emotional issues. Your screening score indicates only whether your responses to the questionnaire are consistent with symptoms of any of the following disorders: depression, postpartum depression, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder. Based on those results, you will receive recommendations of further steps for you to consider. These online screening tools are not a substitute for consultation with a health professional. Regardless of the results of a screen, if you have any concerns, see your doctor, counselor or other mental health professional.

During inclement weather, the UAB Employee Assistance & Counseling Center will make every effort to maintain regular business hours (8 a.m.-6 p.m.). However, when an announcement is made that the UAB campus is closed due to inclement weather, the EACC will also be closed. Such announcements are usually made on the UAB main webpage, the UAB Emergency Management page, B-Alert, your local news stations, or WBHM radio (90.3 FM). Also, there may be rare occasions when the EACC office building in Five Points (a non-UAB property) is closed due to weather-related or uncontrollable building-related circumstances to protect the safety of the public.

Tardiness to appointments can have an adverse effect on the therapeutic process if there is not enough time to discuss treatment concerns. If you are a current EACC client and you arrive 15 minutes late or more for your scheduled appointment, you will be asked to reschedule — unless your counselor can accommodate you, if their schedule allows. This may mean you will have to wait until your counselor’s next available appointment, which may be scheduled at least a week out or more.

Also, if you are a new EACC client and arrive at your scheduled appointment time 15 minutes late or more and have not completed your intake paperwork, you may be asked to reschedule your appointment. If you have not completed your intake paperwork as instructed, please arrive at least 30 minutes prior to your scheduled appointment.

As of July 1, 2019, we will no longer allow clients visiting the EACC to bring backpacks into their counseling sessions. Per UAB Physical Security, this policy was recommended to ensure the safety of our staff members, clients and family members visiting the EACC. Lockers will be available in our lobby/waiting area to accommodate clients who carry backpacks for business or student purposes.

Individual, couple and family therapy is available by appointment only.

To schedule an intake consultation appointment, please click on the appropriate paperwork link to the right and complete the intake forms online. If this is an emergency, defined as suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts, abuse, and/or domestic violence, please call 911, or one of the other emergency numbers listed in the information box.*

Once we have received your completed paperwork, we will call you within three business days to schedule your 30-minute phone intake consultation. Please be sure to provide a phone number where you can be reached during normal business hours. All parties who are age 14 and older and will be involved in counseling must be available for the scheduled phone intake consultation. If you have not received a call from the EACC within three business days of submitting your paperwork, please call the EACC at 205-934-2281.

Couples and Families: People age 14 and older who will be involved in counseling must complete and submit the Intake Form for Couples/Family for themselves. Parents/guardians must complete and submit an Intake Form for children under the age of 14.

You will talk to a counselor for 15-30 minutes. The counselor will review our policies and procedures. The counselor will ask some questions, review any pertinent information provided in your intake paperwork, and ask you what your goal for therapy is. The counselor will then decide on the most appropriate way to address your concerns. This may involve individual, couple, family, or group counseling, referral to a physician or nurse practitioner, and/or a referral to a counselor in the community.

If you haven’t attended an appointment with your EACC counselor within the past 12 months, you will be required to go through the intake phone screening process. If you have been in counseling within the last 12 months, please call 205-934-2281 if you would like to schedule an appointment with your current counselor. If you would like to change counselors and have been attending counseling within the past 12 months, please call 205-934-2281 and ask to be reassigned to a new counselor.

Phone intake hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

If you are not available within 10 minutes of the start of your scheduled phone intake appointment, your intake appointment will need to be rescheduled to another date and time.

If you become ill or have a conflicting obligation and must miss an appointment, you should call the EACC at 205-934-2281 as far in advance as possible to reschedule. If you do not show up for two appointments in a row without calling, you will be placed on a waiting list for the next appointment, typically about six weeks.

If you have never been in counseling, you may feel nervous and not know what to expect. Most people, however, are surprised at how comfortable the counseling experience is when they are working with a counselor at the EACC. Counseling typically involves talking about concerns to build your insights and provide new perspectives, teaching coping and wellness skills, providing information about mental health and treatment options, and helping you set and work toward goals for change.

Clients experiencing a mental health emergency or crisis should call 911 or go to the UAB Emergency Department (ED), the UAB Highlands ED, or the nearest ED for immediate assistance. You may also access these emergency resources.

• Birmingham Crisis Center: 205-323-7777
• 24hr Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
• 24hr National Hopeline Network: 1-800-784-2433
• Crisis Text Line: Text “UAB” to 741741
• Alabama Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-650-6522