FEI Announces Launch of Crisis Management Blog

FEI Behavioral Health recently contributed to the rapidly growing dialog about the importance of understanding social media within the context of crisis management. Our article, "Weathering the Social Media Storm: How to Integrate Social Media Into the Threat Assessment Process" appeared in the newsletter of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals.

Nick Zarcone, chairman of the FEI Behavioral Health Board of Directors, will become CFO of Robert W. Baird & Co. April 1, 2011.

Zarcone joined Baird in 1995. Since 2004 he has served as managing director and COO of investment banking. He became chairman of FEI's board in January 2011.

The FEI Behavioral Health Board of Directors recently voted unanimously to hire Ted Uczen as president of the Milwaukee-based crisis management services, employee assistance program, and work-life services company.

FEI Behavioral Health announces the addition of several new products.

FEI has announced the debut of Manager Exchange. Manager Exchange is a blog created to facilitate sharing expertise and exchanging ideas as well as sharing views, experiences and resources subjects relevant to workforce resilience.

Find Manager Exchange here.

Dan Potterton, chief operating officer for FEI Behavioral Health an industry veteran gives his expert advice on best practices regarding when and how to launch a wellness program. The employee benefit news article “Preparing for Open Enrollment 2011: Covering all bases” gives wellness the spotlight it deserves.

Keys to Organizational Resilience - The Value of Being Prepared

With the pace of business accelerating to an ever-more frantic pace, it is often too easy to set aside concerns about preparing your organization for a crisis. 

Yet, the headlines make it clear that “It Can Happen Here.” A wide spectrum of events can disrupt your ability to conduct business and put your staff at risk. 

Even the most basic levels of preparedness can help your organization get back on its feet, minimizing the debilitating long-term effects of a crisis. 

Families International, the Alliance for Children and Families, United Neighborhood Centers of America, Ways to Work, and FEI Behavioral Health will hold a memorial service to celebrate the life of the late Peter Goldberg, our leader and friend, on Sunday, October 16th, at 6:30–7:30 p.m. EDT.

The service will be held in the International Ballroom of the Washington Hilton, 1919 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Washington D.C.

Innovative financial wellness approach allows access to emergency funds and builds credit

Sept. 13, 2011— FEI Behavioral Health, a national EAP, wellness and crisis management company based in Milwaukee, has partnered with Emerge Workplace Solutions to offer an exclusive new financial wellness program aimed at strengthening workers’ financial resiliency.

From Nonprofit to For-Profit: A Story of Organizational Transformation

MILWAUKEE- Sept 30th, 2011 – FEI Behavioral Health, a leading Milwaukee-based crisis management, EAP, and wellness services company, will present an engaging workshop at the 2011 NIB/NAEPB Annual Training Conference. This session will outline how a nonprofit program, at a nonprofit membership organization, has reinvented itself multiple times over the past 30 years to become a multimillion-dollar, for-profit business, owned by a social enterprise.

MILWAUKEE — Oct. 12, 2011 — Susan N. Dreyfus, secretary of the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services has been named President and CEO of Families International, Inc., parent company of FEI Behavioral Health. She will replace Peter Goldberg, who died suddenly on Aug. 12, 2011. Dreyfus will also become a board member for FEI Behavioral health, in addition to several leadership roles within Families International, Inc. effective Jan. 2, 2012.

When the for-profit company FEI Behavioral Health, Milwaukee, prospers, members of the Alliance for Children and Families earn a social and capacity-building dividend. Yet, they are insulated from the risks typically associated with being corporate shareholders.

MILWAUKEE- Jan. 30, 2012 – FEI Behavioral Health, a leading Milwaukee-based crisis management, EAP, and wellness services company, is pleased to announce Diane Barbieri and Dan Potterton as the winners of the 2011 Amy Kallas Customer Advocate Award for the 4th Quarter and 2011 Amy Kallas Customer Advocate of the Year Award, respectively.

Just as immediate medical care can mean the difference between future complications and a swift recovery after an injury, immediate psychological first aid can mean the mean the difference in the time it takes for a company’s employees to psychologically heal after the event.

Susan Dreyfus took over in January as president and chief executive of the Alliance for Children and Families and its parent organization, Families International. She said she wants to raise the visibility of the organizations to make them more vital, participatory and important to Milwaukee. And she thinks she's perfectly suited to do that because of her history, experience and long ties to the state.

It CAN Happen Here: A Proactive Approach to Violence Prevention in Schools

As horrifying and unthinkable as violence in schools may be, we are tragically reminded far too often that it is a possibility every community must take seriously. Preparing for crisis is certainly no promise of prevention, and from the vantage of hindsight the diligent course may seem obvious. Nonetheless, it is worth remembering that while awareness is the most basic tool of crisis prevention, its importance is often overlooked.

FEI is dedicated to supporting our country’s Veterans by providing these workers with the assistance that is needed to make a smooth transition from military to civilian life. Through the use of a short survey, FEI has been researching how our customers and partners have also made this commitment to Veterans. In order to learn more about the purpose of our survey, and our research initiative, we invite you to view our new Returning Veterans Initiative Video introduced by FEI’s Chief Operating Officer, Dan Potterton.

As horrifying and unthinkable as violence on campus may be, we are tragically reminded far too often that it is a possibility every community must take seriously. Preparing for crisis is certainly no promise of prevention, and from the vantage of hindsight the diligent course may seem obvious. Nonetheless, it is worth remembering that while awareness is the most basic tool of crisis prevention, its importance is often overlooked.

“Behaviors rarely happen in a vacuum,” says Dr. Vivian Marinelli, senior director of crisis management with FEI Behavioral Health. “Particularly in students, there tend to be signals and precursors to violent behaviors. Increasingly, these signals are in plain view, thanks to the various forms of social media. It is crucial for all stakeholders in our communities to take these signals seriously. Oftentimes the ability to do that comes from simple awareness.”

Creating 9-1-1 Fact Sheets for your employees. Why your employees' personal safety matters to your business.

Implementing a system that allows for the proper collection, integration and confidential management of family contact information and other important employee information helps HR professionals communicate with employees and keep their families safe during a crisis on a real-time basis. This type of system ensures that families receive accurate and timely information about their loved one’s whereabouts or health status at the time of a disaster.

FEI Behavioral Health is pleased to announce the addition of its new Compliance and Ethics Hotline product, an anonymous and confidential external employee whistleblower system. FEI’s Compliance and Ethics Hotline (CEH) product underscores an organization’s commitment to supporting the highest standards of ethical behavior. The CEH provides employees and stakeholders a means to anonymously report health and safety concerns, theft and illegal behavior, register complaints, and report unethical behavior to an impartial and objective third party.

FEI’s Chief Operating Officer, Dan Potterton will be presenting a session at the 26th annual Wisconsin Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) State Conference in Wisconsin Dells, WI. Dan’s session, “Multigenerational Workplace: A Leadership Opportunity,” will be held on Friday, October 5th from 11:30am to 12:45pm. The session will identify the unique characteristics of the four different biological generations of today’s workplace and describe the most effective strategies in managing these individual generations.

Might the move toward standardization benefit from some manner of training or advisory program similar to one in the United States that helps long-term care facilities implement emergency management plans, and train employees about what to do in response to disasters?

Absolutely, argues Dan Potterton, chief operating officer of Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based FEI Behavioral Health, the national network employee assistance program provider that provides crisis management, disaster planning and employee assistance program services in the U.S. and countries including Canada. "I think governments should set a level of awareness and expectation," says Potterton. "It's not just 'do we have a plan, have we practiced a plan and have we talked to the plan,' people change constantly in this business, so the question is whether there is business continuity in terms of one person sharing information with another individual as opposed to a plan sitting on a shelf getting dusty.

Hurricane Sandy was yet another wake-up call to hospitals and long-term care (LTC) organizations to have a written disaster plan in place. Some facilities that chose not to evacuate in advance ended up evacuating during the height of the storm, making it more dangerous and difficult. This brings to light the importance of having a disaster recovery plan and knowing when to use it. Would your facility be able to survive a disaster?

In the wake of the mass shooting tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut in which 20 students were killed, along with six adults, crisis management experts say it’s important for parents to talk with children about what happened and make emergency plans. The enormity of the Newtown, Connecticut shooting may seem overwhelming, but clinical psychologist and Senior Director of Crisis Management for FEI Dr. Vivian Marinelli says parents must understand what happened, come up with a safety plan and talk to their children.

"As the crisis call center for 9/11 victims and their families, we know the importance of having well-established crisis plans at all levels of business – from managing supplies to accounting for staff, physicians and patients in the midst of disaster. Yet, despite examples such as Hurricane Sandy, many facilities simply haven’t taken the time to focus on it.”

FEI’s Dr. Vivian Marinelli was on 620 WTMJ Wisconsin’s Afternoon News talking with John Mercure about the recent proposal in Madison to screen elementary students for mental health.

"There are a couple of things to consider when you look at mandatory mental health screenings. If we start to move away from that stigma of mental illness and treat it as mental health and consider the whole wellness of an individual, it’s a great piece. Much like health overall, there may be something here that needs to be addressed. In doing so, students can go and reach their full potential as a result of having it addressed early on. This way if you address it early on and give the support that’s needed you really can prime them to be able to meet that full potential." - Dr. Vivian Marinelli

April 22, 2013, Milwaukee, Wis. — FEI Behavioral Health, a national EAP, wellness and crisis management company based in Milwaukee, announces its new partnership with Atlanta-based Families First, a leading nonprofit family service agency in Georgia. As a result of the partnership, finalized in late 2012, FEI now manages all Employee Assistance Program (EAP) operations for Families First customers.

Susan N. Dreyfus, CEO of FEI’s parent company, Families International Inc. has been appointed to the National Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities. The appointment was made by Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Dreyfus will join 11 other appointed members on the bipartisan commission, which was created through the Protect Our Kids Act passed by Congress in 2012 and signed into law by President Barack Obama in January 2013.

Whether you work in a factory, a bank, at a construction site, or for an airline, the process of planning for a disaster is virtually the same. Having a solid disaster plan with an Emergency Response Manual (ERM) is key to determining how a business survives and recovers. No matter the type of workplace, disaster planning should take an "all-hazards" approach that demonstrates the flexibility to respond to any disruption in business continuity.

FEI is sponsoring the Helping Veterans Return to Work: Best Practices for Behavioral Health Practitioners conference that will take place on June 7 from 9 am to 4:30 pm at Rutgers University. This free conference for behavioral health and EAP professionals will focus on a comprehensive approach to veteran’s health that attends to physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and financial dimensions. Led by nationally recognized experts, the program will engage participants through keynote, panel and workshop sessions on best practices for helping returning combat veterans reconnect with work, family, and community. Participants will receive information on the best approaches to assessment and service provision and helpful knowledge and resources regarding when and how to refer.