Andrew Kinder

Recovery and improvement benchmarks for counselling and the psychological therapies in routine primary care

Measuring the outcomes of counselling and the psychological therapies has become an increasingly important component in managing individual services within routine primary care settings. Outcome data collected from multiple settings can be combined to establish benchmarks against which services and practitioners can make comparisons. To achieve this, we used a large data set comprising >11,000 clients from 32 primary care NHS services who completed the CORE-OM at both intake and end of counselling or therapy. We used four categories relating to components of reliable and clinically significant change (recovery, improvement, no reliable change, and reliable deterioration) to establish service benchmarks. However, we focussed primarily on those relating to recovery and improvement. Importantly, in addition to service benchmarks, we calculated benchmarks for individual practitioners taking into account a simple adjustment for case mix. The resulting benchmarks and their meaning are discussed.

The costs of suicide and sudden death within an organization.

The effect of any death spreads out to many people. Deaths that occur in the workplace need to be handled with particular care given that the bereaved family as well as work colleagues will have been affected. Death by suicide or situations when an employee becomes suicidal can challenge even the most experienced manager. This article aims to raise some of the issues surrounding sudden death and suicide at work and suggests a number of ways that an organization can respond to such challenges.

Benchmarking key service quality indicators in UK Employee Assistance Programme Counselling: A CORE System data profile

Abstract Background: Levels of psychological distress appear to be increasing in the workplace, in parallel with the growth of employee assistance programme (EAP) provision offering a range of talking treatments. However, such growth takes place in the absence of a substantive body of supporting research evidence despite a quarter of a decade of research activity. Aims: To analyse a national sample of EAP data and profile relative service quality on a set of key service indicators. Method: CORE System data profiles of over 28,000 clients were voluntarily donated by six EAP service providers. An established benchmarking methodology was used to assess the relative quality of EAP service provision compared with published CORE System benchmarks for NHS primary care and UK higher education student counselling services. Results: High quality data profiled an EAP service clientele who were quantifiably distressed, accessed treatment quickly, with the majority completing treatment and demonstrating high rates of ...

Managing Workload Pressure

Workload is simply the amount of work we have scheduled with our name on it, through employment, academic demands or domestic pressures. But it’s not quite as simple as that. It’s rare that we have complete control, management or authority regarding the demands placed upon us.

Spotting Signs of Stress in Others

While this chapter focuses on identifying when others are stressed, it can be applied to you too. The point is that most us don’t always pick up the cues when we feel overloaded, so sometimes it can help to get a gentle nudge from someone else.

Looking After Yourself and Self-Care

We spend a lot of time looking after other people, whether this is a child, an elderly parent or relative, someone at work who needs support or a friend in need. In some ways it’s easier to take care of other people. We might get a feel-good factor knowing that we are very much appreciated for our efforts. And helping others does make us feel good, undoubtedly.

Dealing with Difficult People

We refer to someone as being ‘difficult’ because there’s some breakdown in the relationship. This is different to Chap. 7 which specifically looks at ‘conflict’, which is not necessarily related to a breakdown in a relationship.

Rest and Relaxation

We live in a fast-paced society, everything whizzing past, people, noise, the constant message alerts on our mobile phones, social media, TV and so on. It’s a stimulation explosion.

Personal Stress Management Toolkit

We experience stress when we perceive that the demands placed upon us exceed our ability to cope. Our perception is our reality. An issue, circumstance or event may not be stressful in itself, but the way we perceive it determines whether we interpret this as stressful.

Problem-Focused Resilience

We cope with struggles and crisis situations in a range of different ways, though we rarely adopt a logical, consistent approach. Sometimes we might need to adapt to circumstances, so one method of coping isn’t always going to deliver the best solution. But introducing a repertoire of coping and resilience-focused styles gives us the choice to select a more appropriate one for the situation.