Violence Prevention against Clients or Students

Some Guidelines for Dealing with Violence From Clients or Students

by David Ballard and Dr. Brad Binder

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Many care providers and teachers must deal with violence during the course of their work. In fact, violence is a leading cause of death on-the-job in the United States and costs millions of dollars for U.S. companies annually. Because of this, we believe that individuals and organizations need to be aware of how to reduce violence at work. W.R.Associates provides the following outline of guidelines to help reduce the liklihood of violence in your lives.

As an individual:

It is OK to be prepared for violence.
Trust your feelings and be ready to take action.
Do not assume that you are immune to violence because you are a nice person or because you only see women clients or students.
You can do a lot to make yourself safer by using your training and practicing safety policies and procedures.
Care providers should attend continuing education classes to learn how to assess violent behavior.
A client or student with a history of violence or substance abuse is more likely to resort to violence again.
Walk assertively, do not look like a victim or target. Don't walk where people can hide.
Care providers should first rely on therapeutic principles to avoid the necessity of using force on clients.
Warn clients that an interview will be terminated if aggressive behavior continues.
Know when to stop trying and end the interview, leave, or call the police.
Arrangement of office furniture and the physical positioning of the parties in an interview can help to create a safe environment for both clients and care providers.
In offices, desks should be positioned against a wall and you should be seated so they will not be trapped by furniture. Swivel chairs are best.
All potential weapons (e.g. staplers, scissors, paperweights, pictures) should be removed from ready access.
Avoid having your clothing used against you. Beware of wearing neckties, scarves and dangling pierced earrings, high heels or clothing that restricts movement.
Whether you are on home visits or seeing people in an office, both you and the clients/students must have access to doorways without needing to go around each other.
Doors should remain open during an interview with a potentially violent person. Speaking in low voices would ensure necessary privacy.
During home visits you should sit close to exits. Also, you should not sit in overstuffed furniture that may be difficult to rise from.
You should make others aware of your schedule so it will be apparent when you are late from home visits.

As an organization:

The steps that agencies and individuals can take range from protective arrangement of office furniture to development of office procedures that workers should follow when violence threatens.
Have a plan ready before violence occurs, practice it as though it were a fire drill.
Inexpensive safety precautions are:

Establish codes to alert fellow workers that violence may erupt or that someone is in danger. An example would be to call for the "green file" while maintaining normal communication with the client could summon a coworker. Calling for "Dr. Hackenbush" could signal that the police are needed.
All employees should wear name tags so that agencies can keep track of strangers not wearing name tags on the premises.
In larger facilities, signs should be posted so that people do not get lost in the building.
Informal barrier structures can be used to help differentiate between and separate clients and staff.
Doors should be locked so that unauthorized people cannot simply walk into the building.
Write a safety plan informing staff members what to do if someone is threatened. In larger agencies, steps should be taken to ensure that all staff are made aware of an incident. We can help in the creation of such policies and procedures.

In the event of an incident, it is important to address the impact of that incident on the person and their family. A debriefing allows facts to be reviewed and emotions expressed. Also, other staff members must be reminded about any plan the agency has already developed and told how it will be modified so that violence is less likely to occur again.
Intercoms from each office to the front office or between all offices allows ready communication in case of trouble.

Note, even following all these and other guidelines, you still may be the victim of assault by a client, student or patient. These guidelines can help reduce the liklihood of violence but cannot entirely prevent such violence.

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