Dane Gibson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Mar 01/99) - Life. When you're up it's blue skies, but when you're in a valley....

Many say the depth of life's valleys depends on perspective. Employers in the North know many of their staff are subjected to more stress than the average bear because of their isolation from family and the difficult working situations they're in.

A variety of companies are accessing Northern Employee Assistance (EAP) Programs to help their staff cope with life's problems.

EAP is a confidential service handling everything from couple and family relationship counselling to suicidal feelings, grieving and substance abuse issues.

"The thinking that has developed EAP is that employers have both an economical and humane interest in seeing their employees mentally healthy," NWT Family Services executive director Paul Conway said.

"They know if their employees are mentally healthy, it will reflect positively on the job site."

NWT Family Services has managed an EAP contract for the GNWT since 1996. Since then, Conway has been actively trying to expand the service, called EAP North, to assist communities and companies situated throughout the Western and Eastern Arctic. "We've been building carefully, step-by-step, and it's a process that's taking longer than we thought it would," Conway said.

"We're not where we wanted to be at this time but we've got a solid foundation from where we can reach out to other communities."

EAP North is now serving approximately 450 cases per year and covers around 8,000 employees and their families.

Conway said because the Arctic population is so small and scattered, approaches to the established EAP method have been altered for the North, sometimes radically.

"EAP counsellors in the North very often can't refer clients with problems that require more than a few counselling sessions to someone else," Conway said.

"In a way, we've had to reinvent counselling to address issues in the North."

Cominco Ltd. Polaris Mine, on Cornwallis Island, has had an EAP service in place for its more than 250 employees (and their families) since 1991.

Southern-based Corporate Health Consultants (CHC) manage the company's counselling contract. Polaris assistant personnel director Patty Salter said she's extremely pleased with the services CHC provides.

"We are a remote mine so that causes our employees extra hardships," Salter said.

"This gives them an opportunity to call a professional agency that can help them deal with anything they have a problem with."

She said the confidential nature of the service ensures employers don't know who is using it. That means employees and their family members can feel comfortable accessing the service.

"Daily life can be overwhelming and occasionally, that seriously affects an employee's health and functioning," Salter said.

"If the employees have the resources from an outside, confidential service to resolve problems, then both the employer and the employee benefit."