If your personal safety was being threatened at work by a customer, service user or member of the public while at work would you know what to do?
There were an estimated 698,000 incidents of violence at work according to the 2015/16 CSEW, comprising of 329,000 assaults*. The care sector being one of the highest risk environments. Violent and aggressive incidents are the third biggest cause of injuries reported under RIDDOR from the health and social care sector.
Peer to peer violence within the child care sector is also unacceptably high with research, indicating it as a common problem for children in residential care. A study by NSPCC found three-quarters of children interviewed experienced physical violence, and half experienced emotional abuse from another child in their settings. One large study, based on young people’s experiences in 48 children’s homes, showed that just under half of children reported attempts at bullying and a third of girls stated another resident had attempted to take advantage of them sexually.
On 5th July 2017, 5 STAR documented the tragic deaths of Hannah Windsor (17 years old) and Melissa Mathieson (18 Years old) on their programme ‘When Kids Kill’. The girls were both murdered by care home residents one within the care home setting. Andy Baker, director and head trainer at Able Training was invited to participate in the programme to promote the importance of training within the care sector, specifically training in managing aggression and personal safety training. The programme included Andy demonstrating and teaching a small selection of disengagement techniques that Able training teach to care and non-care staff across the country on our physical intervention/breakaway training courses.
The programme highlights the dangers people could face while working in care and here at Able Training, we believe that being trained in relevant areas could be crucial. Our courses range from low risk Managing Challenging Behaviour and De-Escalation, through to mid-level risk such as Managing Conflict and Breakaway and up to high risk PMVA Training (Prevention & Management of Violence and Aggression).
You can view Andy’s comments in the clip below. Alternatively, click here to view the whole episode.
