Violence against social workers 'chronic'

Violence against social workers 'chronic'
12 February, 2010 | By Jim Dunton

Local government’s largest trade union has said that physical attacks on social workers have reached ‘chronic levels’ and called on ministers to act.


Unison said attacks and abuse against staff – including other professionals working in social care – meant the jobs now had to be considered “high risk”.

It launched a 10-point plan to combat abuses including assaults, false imprisonment, verbal abuse, and the vandalism of personal property.

Helga Pile, the union’s national officer for social care, said such incidents fuelled high staff turnover and sickness levels, and could not be tolerated.

“Being a social worker, or working in social care has become a high risk job,” she said.

“It cannot be right that staff who are working hard, often under difficult circumstances, to keep children and vulnerable adults safe, are coming under regular attacks and abuse.

“Threats and assaults lead to stress, ill-health, sickness absence, and high staff turnover.

“With serious skills shortages already hitting many social work departments, it makes sense to tackle this problem head-on.”

Ms Pile said a first step to keeping staff safe would be setting up a national register of attacks so that such incidents could be analysed.

Unison’s 10-point plan:
1.Additional funding from central government equivalent to the programme for NHS staff to invest in measures to protect staff, and provide safety equipment such as personal alarms
2.The creation of risk assessment and prevention strategies to include more thorough risk assessments, and well-developed prevention strategies, such as redeployment of workers whilst incidents are investigated, and training. Also, staff should not have to use their own car for high-risk visits – number plates make it easy to trace people
3.The reporting and recording of all incidents and safety arrangements so that appropriate responses can be made and situations reviewed
4.Improvements in the way incidents are dealt with locally so staff have good support and that confidence to report incidents can be built up
5.A national system of monitoring violent incidents for all local government staff, with national guidance on reporting categories, to enable trends to be identified and action triggered
6.Easy access to support and counselling for affected staff. This should be based on need and include possible re-deployment, compensation for damaged property and practical support
7.Increased inspections by enforcing authorities to make sure employers are taking enough action to tackle the problem
8.Improvements to the management of lone working should include stopping single-staffing on risky visits
9.Closer relations between police, the crown prosecution service, including local memoranda of understanding for how incidents against staff will be handled
10.Better protocols in mental health between employers, police and ambulance services to ensure adequate back-up and support for social workers who have to manage the compulsory admission to hospital of mental health patients.

http://www.lgcplus.com/news/social-care/violence-against-social-workers-chronic/5011428.article