Vitae is now Fire and Emergency’s national provider for our Employee Assistance Programme

From 1 July 2021 Fire and Emergency’s single national provider for the delivery of our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) will be Vitae.

Our people can continue to access counselling through Vitae via phone, web referral or the VitaeNZ app. Anyone currently seeing a counsellor through EAP Services, is able to continue their sessions to completion as part of the transition.

If anyone wants to see a counsellor they have an existing relationship with after the transition on 1 July, they will need to check if they are on the Vitae list of counsellors(external link). If not, they can ask the counsellor to apply through the Vitae website(external link). Since the application process takes time, if the counselling need is urgent, we suggest people pick a counsellor from Vitae’s list.

Our people can change their counsellor at any time if they feel they are not connecting with the counsellor they have been allocated.

We recognise that responding to emergencies can be as psychologically demanding as it is physically. However, nothing is more important than our people and we aim to ensure they have the support they need to operate safely as well as protect the public. There are a range of support services available to our people, both from within Fire and Emergency and external to our organisation. Find out more about what we have available to our people.

To ensure continuous improvement, our people are able to provide any feedback on services either directly to Vitae(external link) or through the Safety, Health and Wellbeing Team.