NSW Department of Communities and Justice / The Provision of an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) - Prj_2531 - RFX Notice

EAP provides confidential advice, support and information for DCJ employees and their families experiencing challenges or wanting to improve wellbeing.

Service Category:

General Counselling (GC)

• Confidential

• 24/7, 365 days phone access

• Online Services including access to Live chat

• Include immediate family members

• 10x session limit for peer support and judicial officers

• Appointment reconfirmation

• Initial counselling should occur within 2 days of contact with EAP Supplier, unless otherwise negotiated between employee and Supplier with the following expectation:

- For metropolitan: Access to F2F within 48 hours of contact

- for metropolitan: Same day, if considered urgent

• For Regional: Access to F2F within 3 days ( Better access to regional services)

• Service Bandwidth 8am-8pm Monday to Friday

Phone-based GC

 • 24/7 service, 365 day toll-free  service

- Access to a counsellor within 2 hours of employee contact or immediately if it is a life threatening situation

• EAP Supplier shall have immediate access to emergency services personnel in extreme cases where a person is in a life threatening situation

• Employee to be made aware of face to face counselling options

- 3 way conferencing system to all for interpreter services to be utilised

• Manager assist line included

D&A Counselling

 • Individual counselling, either face to face or telephone for D&A dependency issues

- for metropolitan: Access to F2F within 48 hours of contact

- for Regional: Access to F2F within 3 days or if life threatening situation, immediate access

Critical Incident Counselling Critical/Traumatic Incident Response – within two (2) hours in Sydney metropolitan area and twenty four (24) hours in all other areas.  Will require initial intervention but follow up of staff involved in the incident.  Follow up of every person involved in critical/trauma Incident must be conducted by the attending appropriate Approved Personnel and should be by phone or other electronic means, one week and then again at one month post intervention. Specify timeframes for response I.e – from initial call or once visitation is confirmed. 

*A preference to psychologists that understand the nature of the role – Child protection, custodial etc

Access to other services

• Consulting/Workshop/Seminars

• Manager hotline

• ATSI hotline

• LGBTQI hotline

• Online Hub

• Information sessions – annual limit

• Webinars

• Nutrition/Dietician (phone only)

• Financial (phone only)

• Legal ( 2 only)

• Translator services – if required

Well Check Provided at request

Method of Referrals Self-referral. Participation by employees or Eligible participants in the EAP is voluntary.

Training and Promotional Material/Services

• Supplier to provide promotional material at own expense. Such material may include: Brochures, posters, wallet cards, Information articles, or general Wellbeing resources. 

• Supplier may be required to provide onsite information overview session at annual Agency conferences and any cost associated with this shall be at expense of EAP Supplier

• The EAP Supplier shall distribute at a minimum, quarterly newsletter or update to all agency employees residential addresses, at no cost to Agency. Agency will provide supporting information to the EAP Supplier for inclusion.

Required Qualification/ Experience of Counsellors

The service must be provided by registered psychologists with a minimum of five (5) years appropriate post registration clinical experience to undertake professional psychological counselling in diverse organisations.

*Consideration may be offered to access social workers in regional areas where there is significant delay to access counselling or if there is a specific request such as a First Nation social worker.

Reporting

• Quarterly reports and annual reports

• Reports to be broken down to division

• KPI around investigating and providing reports when a poor EAP encounter occurs. (can only  be authorised by WHS Manager of each Division)

Performance Management Checks conducted in line with KPI’s

Counselling limits and approvals

• Four (4) sessions for every issue

• If more than 4, the division delegated officer may approve further sessions on an ‘as needed’ basis in exceptional circumstances

o Staff member will be responsible for any further costs incurred if additional sessions are required

• Peer Support Officers and Judicial Officers have access to an additional six (6) sessions. 

Referrals from counsellor

• EAP supplier shall undertake to provide appropriate referrals of clients as necessary, and shall clearly explain to clients the likely costs involved with any additional counselling sessions as the result of a referral. Wherever possible, referral should be to services that are free or within the person's capacity to pay.

• Referrals shall include services for persons from non-English speaking backgrounds. It is important that referrals are the most appropriate for the individual caller. This may include referral to psychological, psychiatric, legal and / or financial resources.

• EAP Supplier shall be responsible for monitoring and reporting the outcome of these referrals.

Confidentiality & exemptions

Subject to any professional ethical obligations, the EAP supplier must inform the Department if any client activities that may represent an imminent risk of harm to the individual, other workers, incarcerated persons or public

Account Manager Responsibilities

Dedicate an account manager to the contract, who will have the authority to act on behalf of and to resolve difficulties that may arise during the course of the contract. The Account Manager will need to be able to be contacted during business hours and at all other times on reasonable notice by the Department and will attend quarterly update meetings to discuss EAP.

Contract Manager Responsibilities

The Department will nominate the Senior Advisor, Health and Wellbeing team as the key contact for managing the contract. 

Invoicing

Shall provide monthly invoices to the Department. The invoices shall be received no later than two weeks after the invoicing month ends.*Suggested by CC, Supplier advise us how they will invoice.  Options include: PAYG or an inclusion model – TBA a request for an innovative payment structure will be included in RFT.

Quality Control/Audits

EAP Supplier shall ensure that in its approach to quality control the following points will be taken into consideration:

• Data collection is accurate.

• Standards and protocols for answering calls. A process for identifying information gaps.

• Updating the database.

• Turnaround time from contact by employee to when counselling is offered.

• In-house technical support.

• Policy development.

• Professional development and registration of counsellors.

Refer to Additional Details / Instructions

Open Tenders - An invitation to tender by public advertisement with no restriction placed on who may tender. Tenderers will normally be required to demonstrate in their tender that they have the necessary skills, resources, experience, financial capacity, and in some cases licences, accreditations, etc., to fulfil the tender requirements.

• The Procurement (Enforceable Procurement Provisions) Direction 2019 applies to this procurement

• A government agency may conduct negotiations with suppliers regarding the procurement

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