Take control of your well-being
At the University of Saskatchewan, we are committed to offering faculty, staff and eligible family members free access to confidential services and resources to support a healthy mind, body, and life. That’s where Telus Health (formerly Lifeworks), our Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP), comes in.
Through our EFAP, you and your family have access to 24/7, confidential support – available by phone, online or through the Telus Health app.
Crisis support and urgent assistance
In the case of immediate threat of danger, or life threatening or severe psychological difficulties, contact:
- Saskatoon Police Service: 911 or 9-911 (on campus)
- Royal University Hospital: 103 Hospital Drive, (306) 655-1000
- Campus Protective Services: (306) 966-5555
- 24 hour confidential crisis line: (306) 933-6200
Get help when you need it
Telus Health offers support with mental, financial, physical and emotional wellbeing. Whether you have questions about handling stress at work and home, parenting and child care, managing money, or health issues, you can turn to TELUS Health for a confidential service that you can trust.
Life
- Retirement
- Midlife
- Student life
- Legal
- Relationships
- Disabilities
- Crisis
- Personal issues
Family
- Parenting
- Couples
- Separation/divorce
- Older relatives
- Adoption
- Death/loss
- Child care
- Education
Health
- Mental health
- Addictions
- Fitness
- Managing stress
- Nutrition
- Sleep
- Smoking cessation
- Alternative health
Work
- Time management
- Career development
- Work relationships
- Work stress
- Managing people
- Shift work
- Coping with change
- Communication
Money
- Saving
- Investing
- Budgeting
- Managing debt
- Home buying
- Renting
- Estate planning
- Bankruptcy
How to access EFAP
By phone
To schedule an appointment with a counsellor, or to find out how to connect with Telus Health's many services, simply call the 24/7 confidential, USask-dedicated toll-free hotline:
1-855-575-1740
Online or via the Telus Health app
Log in to Telus Health or download their app (see registration instructions below) to connect with a counsellor and access all the resources offered through our EFAP.
What comes with the app?
- Advice from a counsellor with just a tap of your finger
- Tools, podcasts, and videos that are JUST FOR YOU
- Over 20 self-paced programs to help you tackle life’s challenges
All this, and MORE!
Help improve your wellbeing
Support — anytime, anywhere
Self-guided mental health support
Resources for a healthy lifestyle
Registration instructions
- Download the app or go to login.lifeworks.com
- Email or Username or Company Name: USask or your USask email
Eligibility
All USask employees and their eligible family members (e.g. dependents and/or related household family members) are eligible to use Telus Health’s EFAP services.
USask's EFAP is a 100% employer-paid program. Please note you may not have coverage under your USask benefit plan should you continue to receive support after your EFAP services end or you are referred to another professional. It is suggested that you reach out to Sun Life to ensure any services recommended by an EFAP counsellor are covered under your benefit plan. You can also review your benefit plan summary for more details on your benefit coverage.
Counselling therapy
USask’s dedicated EFAP counsellors are trained at a master’s level or higher. They are available to help you and your eligible family members overcome life’s challenges, such as:
- managing anger
- workplace stress
- mild to moderate anxiety and depression
- conflict and bullying
- retirement
- injury or trauma
- work-life balance, and more.
More information about the types of counselling services.
Intake
Telus Health has an accredited intake process for collecting information, starting your file, and assessing your needs.
Each call is different, but your intake conversation will likely include questions to determine:
- Your concern and its severity
- A discussion about all the different ways LifeWorks can support you.
Booking
Telus Health will do its best to accommodate any preferences you have for the format of counselling, scheduling, location or even counsellor characteristics. The clinical quality and impact of EFAP counselling is virtually the same whether you talk in-person, by telephone, online video or in online groups.
You may get appointment details during this booking call, or your counsellor may call you directly.
Counselling Sessions
In your first 1:1 counselling session, you and your counsellor will discuss what brought you in as well as review some additional questions to better understand your needs. Since EFAP counselling is short-term and goal-oriented, you and your counsellor will talk about what is on your mind, and then set a short-term counselling goal.
You and your counsellor will agree to the length of your time in EFAP counselling to ensure you achieve your goal through the short-term program. Or, if your counsellor feels you would be best supported with more specialized or longer-term support, they may recommend resources outside of the EFAP.
Confidentiality
The key is confidentiality!
Telus Health takes the utmost care to protect the identity of anyone who uses their services. The only exceptions to confidentiality include those governed by law, i.e., we are required to release documents under court subpoena, and we have a duty to intervene and report if a consultant or counsellor deems an individual to be at imminent risk of harm to self or others.
- No one will know you have used the EFAP unless YOU tell them
- Many local offices for face-to-face counselling, no back-to-back appointments with employees from the same organization
- Counselling also provided online or by phone. Both are increasingly in demand, are clinically effective and provide more flexibility than face-to-face counselling
- Email or voice messaging in accordance with your instructions
- Online services and programs are firewall and password protected
- All confidentiality is protected within the limits of the law
Employee perks
Telus Health offers USask employees access to a number of perks and exclusive offers to various products including:
- electronics
- rental cars
- vitamins and supplements
- sleep products
- and more
The deals change frequently so check back often. Log into Telus Health online to access these perks and more.
FAQs
Telus Health can provide support and resources to help you find answers to questions related to work, life, health, family, or money. You can contact Telus Health for support with any issue, challenge, or concern. Consultants are available 24/7.
Telus Health’s EFAP counsellors are highly qualified, and we carefully screen all our affiliates to verify their credentials and level of experience. Minimally, counsellors are required to have a Master’s degree in Psychology, Social Work, Educational Counselling, or other related human services field. Some counsellors have PhDs.
Our counselling model is short-term and solution-focused. The number of sessions provided is based on what is deemed clinically appropriate, and up to the service level your employer has selected. In the event that your concern is ongoing in nature, your counsellor will discuss with you the appropriateness of a referral to a community resource outside the EAP and will work with you to access this long-term support.
Telus Health is available to you as an employee of your organization, as well as to your spouse/partner, and to your immediate family members/dependents, at no cost to you.
Telus Health supports and promotes diversity and inclusion in the workplace in many ways, including:
- Matching people with counsellors that share similar lived or cultural experiences.
- Telus Health hires and promote employees that are representative of the diverse communities Telus Health supports, including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and LGBTQ communities. Telus Health’s hiring process for clinical employees and leaders include responses to scenarios that help determine if they are equipped to support marginalized communities that may be at greater risk. The Telus Health's continuous learning program equips its employees to respond empathetically to instances of racism and trauma presented by the people Telus Health supports.
- In addition to continuously creating structural inclusivity in our Employee Assistance Program (EAP), we also have resources and programs available for clients to create a more diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace.
Any new relationship – even if short-term, can be awkward at first. Keep an open mind and get the most you can from your counselling sessions. But, if you are certain you cannot continue, you can call us back to get a re-assignment. Note, that it may take a few additional days to find availability with a new counsellor.
We take concerns seriously and want to make sure we get feedback where it is needed.
You can register your concern by calling the toll-free number and telling the agent you’d like to file a complaint. They will collect relevant information to enter into our investigation software for supervisors or others to action. You can also ask your HR department for the EFAP Account Manager’s email address so you can email your feedback to them. They will paste the content of your email directly into the investigation software verbatim. Regardless, it is always best to receive your feedback in your own words.
Our investigations team may contact you to discuss, but only if we have your explicit consent to contact you, with your desired phone number, and if it is okay to leave voicemail.
EFAP counselling for children is rarely straight forward. The younger a child is the more delicate clinical decisions need to be.
Clinical counsellors - like most professionals - cannot ethically practice outside of their area of skill or training. When a child is exhibiting adult-like mental health symptoms (e.g. anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress), the child is best served by a child psychologist or another specialist who can assess, diagnose and recommend the most appropriate treatment.
Where an adult can often set and reach a short-term counselling goal in 3 or 4 sessions of EFAP counselling, children typically require that many sessions just to establish the necessary trust before beginning therapy.
Some areas where we are often able to support children, are mild behavioural issues or family communication issues. But, in almost all cases, our counsellor will need to have an initial session with a parent or guardian to explore the situation first. The counsellor will then make a recommendation for next steps, which in some cases will be a referral to specialized resources in the community.