Let's begin by defining workplace violence which is a threat, verbal abuse, physical assaullt or a homicide against workers. OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)http://www.osha.gov/ reported that healthcare and social services are the most at risk in any type of environment. Some of the risk factors are: weapons, the increase of mentally ill patients released from hospitals without followup care, long patient waits in emergency rooms, drug abuse, low staff, isolated work areas, and lack of training in how to recognize and handle hostile clients.
Employers have protocal in place such as handbooks detailing the procedures if one should encountera violent situations. Employees are undergoing safety education by utilizing the buddy system. This term is used when co-workers leave a facility in pairs to minimize the chances of an incident occurring to them.
On http://www.nyc.gov/ there was an article posted on February 27, 2007 where Mayor Bloomberg discussed that his office would work towards assaulting an ACS social worker a felony crime. This protection was granted to teachers, police officers, and transit workers.
Last year, my agency organized a safety workshop on how employees could keep themselves safe when working in an unsafe neighborhood. I expected the agency to provide additional training on how to defend oneself from a hostile client. This brings to mind--will an employee be reprimanded if he/she physically defend oneself from such a person or will this be a conflict of interest since we are hired to provide supportive services.
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You might want to look int training that is typically used in group homes etc. to deal with challanging behaviors. It mostly consists of learning how to recognize an escalation in behaviors, how to retreat, and how to ward off attacks. TOVA (Theraputic Options of Virginia)is what is used here in VA frequently but there are others. They all have the same basic premis. Some are more aggressive than others
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