A place to begin...

What is your workplace safety policy?

Helping others - altruistic work

• As a mental health professional, a common reason for entering this field is to help others.

Acknowledgement of risks:

• Reasons for lack of acknowledgement of risks are:– denial that mental health workers are at risk– lack of funding for proper staffing ratios– poor evaluation of workplace environment

settings– limited training of how to manage high risk

clients.

A few statistics:

• Between 2011 and 2013, workplace assaults ranged from 23,540 and 25,630 annually, with 70 to 74% occurring in healthcare and social service settings.

Recent examples of workplace violence in mental health.....

• -On February 12th, 2008, a psychologist working in New York City was killed by a patient of a colleague during an attempted robbery.

• -On February 6th, 2008, a psychotherapist making a home visit in Massachusetts is killed by an 18 year old patient who was threatening to harm himself with a knife.

• -On September 3, 2006, Dr. Wayne Fenton, psychiatrist and leading expert in schizophrenia, was killed by his 19 year old patient.

The next step...Assessment:

• To begin, an assessment of the workplace setting must occur. This assessment includes evaluation of the physical workplace environment, understanding the level of experience and training of employees and an evaluation of the risk factors in the population of clients currently being served by a particular agency.

So what can be done about changing these statistics and tragic stories?

• The good news is there is a substantial amount of change that can occur in managing the risk of working in the mental health profession. It starts with awareness and acknowledgement that there is a real inherent risk in working in the mental health field.

Who is responsible for assessment?

• Everyone has a responsibility to assure safety and take part in the assessment process. The assessment process must include staff at all levels of an agency including directors, managers, therapists, administrative staff and any security personnel.

Creating a safe space.......

Next steps......

• Thank you for watching this brief introduction into understanding risks in mental health settings.

• In the next segment, we will delve further into how to conduct a workplace safety assessment.

Reference:

• [Image] Yom-Tov E, White RW, Horvitz E. Seeking Insights About Cycling Mood Disorders via Anonymized Search Logs. J Med Internet Res 2014;16(2):e65. Retrieved from website: http://www.jmir.org/2014/2/e65