Policy and Key Information
Atrium Listening Service Explained
Background
Workplaces we support often have a limited amount of sessions they can fund for their employees. Employee clients might receive a single 30-minute session or a few sessions and still need further support to supplement their main funded professional intervention in order to:
- Reduce the support and ‘listening ear’ gradually in the transition to self-support.
- Continue to access further self-directed support and signposting.
- Check in against their progress on action plans agreed with their wellbeing specialist practitioner.
- Manage waits for specialist services coordinated with their GP.
- Self-monitor their wellbeing and manage minor setbacks.
- Access reminder support to re-launch their coping strategies from their original clinical plan.
- Provide a space to ‘keep in touch with clients’ until they are ready to transition into self-support or further support.
Atrium Listening Service
- This telephone service is an appointment- based service for those employee clients who have received a service from us in the last 3 months to support our workplace employee clients into a seamless transition into improved wellbeing.
- No referral or employer reference is required to use it.
- The service is free to the employee client and there is no charge to employers.
- Employee clients will usually be advised of this service by their practitioner on the last wellbeing session with our wellbeing specialists.
- To book a session, call the Atrium office.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Who are the people who provide the listening service?
The staff who offer the listening service are typically Masters level trainees on Clinical Psychology or Counselling courses with a lot of experience in working with mental health and supporting clients but they are not qualified nor accredited with a professional body.
In Atrium, we only let qualified practitioners deliver clinical interventions, but we clinically supervise our trainees to offer our listening service by telephone appointment.
2. What can staff do and what can they not do?
Atrium is clear that this service is a listening service and not a professional intervention. However, staff are trained to risk assess, use assessment measures as part of that service and resourced to signpost and remind employee clients of action plans, coping strategies etc. The listening service is coordinated carefully by our pathway team with close access to further clinical advice on case-by-case basis with access to our safeguarding process or re referral framework as required.
3. How do you monitor and evaluate the impact of the listening service?
We use employee client feedback and wellbeing review tools to impact assess this service.
4. How many sessions can I have?
We have no rules on how many sessions that you can have but we do ensure that the call on our team is manageable and that the work is appropriate for the service so we will indicate if further referral is required or another service. This is not a crisis service. This service is not a replacement for professional support when it is required. When our listening team, identify concerns or deterioration in employee wellbeing, they will be working closely with the clinical team to support the employee into the right help and support.
5. What availability is offered?
Atrium continues to try and make appointments that suit the employee client.
6. Will the employer know?
We do not inform employers of your personal access to this service and respect confidentiality unless we have safeguarding concerns (See confidentiality and safeguarding policy). In reports to employers, we may indicate the numbers of employees who accessed the listening service. We also maintain clinical records on listening service clients so we can access more clinical support, supervision, and re-referral information as required and with the employee’s consent.
