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Employee Assistance Programme Press Release

pressrelease

Hamilton, Bermuda (March 12, 2021) – The Argus Group is partnering with the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to sponsor a series of webinars aimed at providing mental and emotional support to individuals dealing with elevated stress levels during the pandemic.

Looking for a way to support the community during the changes brought on by COVID-19, last year the EAP team introduced a series of weekly group wellness webinars, which focused on topics such as relationships, communication, self-care and managing common mental health conditions such as anxiety. The series ran from April to June 2020 and was designed to provide the community with useful clinical and lifestyle information to help them manage these uncertain times. Following the success of last year’s series, which drew more than 1,100 participants, Argus has chosen to sponsor the series for all of 2021.

Shakira Warner, Vice President, Population Health Management, Argus, said, “Argus is proud to continue our sponsorship of the EAP webinar series through 2021. The Employee Assistance Programme of Bermuda has been a valuable mental health resource to the community and a long-standing, trusted partner of ours, particularly when it comes to mental health support for workplaces.

“About a year ahead of the pandemic, we were thinking about ways in which we could have a greater partnership with the EAP in supporting our clients. In March 2020, the lightbulb went off– this is how we can support, not only our insureds, but our community as a whole. We wanted to help make the webinars available to the public, not just Argus and EAP members because there was a significant need, demonstrated in the numbers of those who attended.”

The partnership aligns with Argus’ ongoing work to remove the stigma surrounding mental health. Looking at mental health conditions as they would any other condition, last year, the insurance company removed the cap for those seeking medical treatment overseas for mental health and substance abuse disorders.

Latisha Lister-Burgess, Executive Director of EAP, noticed a trend of clients reporting a rise in anxiety directly related to working from home. She said, “Everybody needs a mental health plan. For people who were already dealing with anxiety and depression in their daily lives, this situation can be exceptionally triggering. For parents trying to work from home, stress levels were especially high. As a wife, mother and employee, many of these things applied to my own life and I wanted to give people the tools they needed, so they can apply it to theirs.”