The AFA will roll out a counselling service for all members in recognition of the need they may have to seek professional help during times of stress.
AFA Chief Executive, Phil Kewin said the new service, AFA Care, would be live from 1 October. It would be available to all members and their staff, over the phone, online and through an app, with counselling services provided by Davidson Trahaire Corpsych.
Kewin said Davidson Trahaire Corpsych was one of the largest providers of employer assistance programs and the initiative from the Association would be included as part of the AFA member proposition.
“The AFA recognises that many of members run small businesses on their own and all often have emotional conversations with clients and share those stresses as well as facing their own around revenue, or industry reputation, or ongoing change,” Kewin said.
“If we see our Association as a community, we need to ensure we are looking after it…”
“We saw some of these stresses last year with the announcements regarding changes to occur under the Life Insurance Framework and the Board felt strongly enough about this matter that we want to offer assistance to our members,” he added.
Kewin said the assistance offered may range from the short to long term and would cover personal, family or business matters and was consistent with the community view held within the AFA.
“It is possible some of our members may have no-one to talk to and we want AFA Care to be accessible to all members and that they are comfortable in accessing the service,” Kewin said.
“If we see our Association as a community, we need to ensure we are looking after it just as the members of that community are looking to take care of people in the wider Australian community.”
That is a great initiative, well done to the AFA and Phil Kewin.
Its a good initiative but the LIF train wreck that will cause the enormous stress is actually a fault of both the FSC and the AFA/FPA. Many risk advisers have a genuine risk of of losing their businesses and a 50% pay cut is still going to cause enormous stress even to those that don’t go under. Offering support to the very people you have caused to need this support is still at best insulting.
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