A new range of services being introduced in 2012 will aim to make Chartered Accountants’ Benevolent Association more easily accessible to members of the profession when they need support.
The new services will include a range of online tools including 24 hour live chat support through the CABA web site; “Beating the Blues” therapy sessions for those suffering from anxiety and depression; a career advice portal called “Workfriend”; face-to-face counselling; and career consultancy and coaching.
Helena Coxshall, Head of Operations at CABA, explained: “Too often, we believe, accountants who approach us for help tend to treat CABA as a call of last resort – they come to us when they are desperate for support and close to breaking point because of the issues they face, which can be anything from stress to debt.
“What we want to achieve over a period of time is for people who are developing problems to recognise much earlier in the process that they have issues that need addressing and to get in touch with CABA sooner rather than later.
“This makes sense in every respect – problems that are tackled before they reach a high degree of severity can almost always be solved more easily and quickly.”
All of the new services for 2012 were designed to make CABA more accessible to accountants through an array of channels, Helena added.
“The spread of clients that CABA helps is huge – from retired people in their 90s who often handwrite a letter to us about their situation and then prefer to receive face-to-face assistance, to young student accountants who might want to access live chat on our web site through their smartphone. It is about meeting all of these needs.
“Increasing our accessibility aims to make us proactive and the first port of call for those who need help, whatever their challenge and however they want to reach us.”
More details on CABA’s new services will be issued as they are introduced.