About Us

 

 

Our Mission

 

The EAPA Chesapeake Chapter is a community that promotes and supports the Employee Assistance profession and its members through networking and development.

 

Our Vision

 

Our vision is to be a broadly diverse association of Employee Assistance and other Professionals who are dedicated to productivity improvement. We embrace technology and professional development. We provide incredible training thus enhancing professionalism, membership and organizational value.

 

Our History

 

EAPA stands for the Employee Assistance Professionals Association. Starting in 1971, EAPA is the largest and oldest professional group for EAPs. With a membership of over 4,000 in about 100 Chapters in the United States and ten Chapters in other countries, EAPA is committed to providing on-going education, training and support to those in the employee assistance field as well as promoting the concept of Employee Assistance.

 

 

 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF
THE EAPA CHESAPEAKE CHAPTER

 

On January 12, 1981, nine Baltimore-area Employee Assistance Professionals met in Towson, Maryland to inaugurate the newly formed Chesapeake Chapter of the Association of Labor-Management Administrator and Consultants on Alcoholism or ALMACA. This meeting followed receipt of a letter from Ed Small, the national ALMACA president, confirming establishment of the Chapter. The first order of business was the election of officers. The membership elected Phil McKenna as President, Jim Murphy, Vice President and Elizabeth Hainesworth as Secretary-Treasurer. The original members also included Jim Gaglioni, Pat Heubusch, Bob Lake, Bob Miller, Bob Myers and Joe Quinn. The chapter meetings were originally held at the Hidden Brook outpatient center in Hampton House on East Joppa Road in Towson, Maryland.

The genesis of this group, however, had begun many years earlier in the 1970s with members of the Baltimore chapter of the American Council on Alcoholism (BACA), some of whom had an interest in the then embryonic, mostly academic study of industrial aspects of alcoholism treatment. This interest gave rise to a Committee known as the Industrial Advisory Board (IAB), which often met before or after Council meetings. As the field matured and concrete programs became more visible, another group of consultants and administrators formed. Thus, the IAB began the a group called "SOAP" which stood for the Sub-committee of Occupational Alcoholism Programmers, which also met quarterly before or after the American Council on Alcoholism meetings.

The 80s were truly "the golden years" for Employee Assistance Programs. Celebrating its tenth year in 1980, ALMACA was truly growing into a national organization, with thirty chapters from Seattle to San Francisco to Houston to Boston. And the Chesapeake Chapter made 31! Mirroring the growth at the national level, the Chapter grew from its initial twelve members (the minimum for starting a chapter) to over a hundred individual and associate members with a mailing list of 300. In 1988, the dream of a professional credential the Certified Employee Assistance Professional (CEAP) and accompanying Code of Professional Conduct was realized with the establishment of the Employee Assistance Certification Commission (EACC).

In 1989, ALMACA formally unveiled its new name--EAPA, the Employee Assistance Professionals Association. The Chesapeake Chapter members hosted the Annual Conference in November of that year and again in November 1997, in addition to hosting EAPA's District I Conference in 1995. In 1992, the Chapter was proud to co-sponsor the Mid-Atlantic Region's newest EAPA Chapter, the Potomac Chapter, which covers the Montgomery, Frederick and Washington counties of Maryland.

In September of 1999, the Chesapeake Chapter served as host to the first EAPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Officers Retreat held at the Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville, Maryland. There 23 representatives from the ten Chapters from Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., came together to learn how to better serve their chapters.    

In 2012, the Chesapeake Chapter hosted the International EAP Conference in Baltimore.

The chapter also participates in the annual EAPA District 1 Leaders Summit that includes exiting and incoming officers, as well as member leaders from Chapters from Maine to Virginia.