28 Aug 2020

Survey: EAPA UK survey of counsellors experience during the COVID-19 pandemic

Counselling in the UK had to shift – almost overnight – to a remote approach when the country went into lockdown during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. To investigate how counsellors delivering services through employee assistance programmes (EAP) were coping with the change, the EAPA UK conducted a survey of 200 professionals.

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Key findings

Before the crisis, around 80% of EAP counselling work was delivered face-to-face. In March 2020 this picture changed with 92% delivering counselling by telephone; 86% using video; 6% used email; 5% via electronic chat; and some 3% used text-based counselling.
The majority (84%) of respondents said that telephone counselling was a satisfactory way to work, while video counselling was satisfactory to 79%. Other methods though, were found to be much less satisfactory (chat and email at 5% and text at 4%).
The data showed 54% of counsellors had been trained in telephone counselling and 52% in video counselling. Only 5% were trained in chat or text, and 6% in email counselling.
Many counsellors flagged their need for further training: video 44%; telephone 31%; email 16%; chat 15% and text 14%.

Looking ahead, the survey would suggest that these more flexible methods of delivery are likely to remain in place in the long term, giving counsellors and their clients more choice in how they give and receiving counselling support.