Who’s Calling?

If there is any chance that somebody in the residence that you are going to visit speaks a language that you do not understand, it is prudent to have an interpreter along to assist. This may not seem necessary if the client speaks your language, but in times of stress and crisis, persons often resort [...]

Inter-Agency Approach to Dealing with Mentally Disordered People in the Community

Today I received a comment on my blog “Dealing Safely With Emotionally Disturbed People” from Frank, who wrote:
“You will see on my link that there is a very dangerous woman who is loose in our town who has severe mental illness. She has jumped people, stabbed people, threatened her mother, but she still manages [...]

Dealing With Stalkers

Linda, the creator of the Fried Social Worker Blog wrote to me asking:  “Do you have any suggestions for social workers who are concerned about clients stalking them? A few days ago a colleague was telling me of her experience of being stalked by an ex-client. I started searching the web for good resources and [...]

Document for Safety

I was reading an article “Remember Those Who Died in Social Care” on the Social Work Blog talking about social workers who had died in the line of duty.  Mike Broad, the author of this entry, said that:
“…Progressive employers are investing in training that encourages their staff to stay calm and confident, read the signs of [...]

Workers Want Safety Training

In “Is Social Care Work Safe?” I was reading the comments of fellow social care workers responding to the death of Philip Ellison:
Lins:  “When is something going to be done to protect workers?  In Children Services we are told not to go out alone if there is a potential for violence, but how many times, [...]

Dealing Safely With Emotionally Disturbed People

I spent many years in the Mental Health Emergency Services unit of VPD getting mentally ill people safely to treatment facilities. For nine years I managed to do this without ever harming a client, at the same time always keeping the nurses and social workers that I worked with out of harm’s way. [...]

Planning and Preparation

A situation that I’ve seen play out time and again in the field is where the social worker or nurse does the right thing and requests police back up.  The police arrive, the social worker and police basically introduce themselves and then everyone troops into the house.  No one stops to explain the purpose of [...]

Who Is That?

I came across these articles by Sarah Ovaska and Thomasi McDonald about a social worker hurt in an office attack in Raleigh, NC, last February (Social worker hurt in attack: Security a concern at Wake building and Wake County Social Worker Assaulted on the Job).  It reminded me of some office incidents that motivated us to write [...]

Check the History and Take Cover

How many of you have been faced with this task: trying to get a decompensating mental patient to return to treatment?  It is a task that I am very familiar with, having spent many years as a police officer working in the Mental Health Emergency Services unit of the Vancouver PD.  Many of these clients were [...]

Injuries to Social Workers from Client Assault

Robin Ringstad Ph.D, LCSW, has an interesting CSWE APM power point presentation showing statistics on client violence to social workers.