Keeping Safe and Working Effectively For Social Workers and Health Professionals

Social workers and health professionals are often placed in situations where they are verbally or physically threatened by service users and others. This book helps them recognise potential risks in situations, when to avoid involvement, and how best to manage these risks, giving them the confidence to work effectively.

Suitable for both practitioners and students, this book covers topics such as managing risks, improving safety awareness and teamwork support within the modern-day context. 

Specifically, this second edition includes: 

• Interviews from current senior and first line managers in children’s and adult social care and health services, front line staff and more. 
  
• A new chapter on managing online and digital issues including managing the transition of back to work after Covid-19. 
  
• Greater emphasis on the responsibilities of employers and their duty of care to staff. 

• Further elaboration on the impairment of decision-making under stress caused by imitation and threat. 

This book will appeal to both practitioners and students. It helps students to become aware of the factors which may affect judgement in child protection cases and assist in managing cases on placement. It helps professional practitioners in managing the anxieties associated with their current case load and provides strategies to manage these unfortunately common workplace experiences.

Introduction – the extent of violence against social workers.

The psychological impact of threat and violence on decision-making.

What practitioners can do to keep themselves safe. 

What organisations can do to keep staff safe.

What practitioners can do keep themselves safe in an incident

Post incident responses

Links to working with resistant families

Staff safety training

Working in non-responsive institutions

Performance management in social care

Summary of issues

Brian Atkins BSc, CQSW, MBA is an experienced social work practitioner and manager and has worked in a range of social care services including children’s services fieldwork, child protection, residential care, leaving care services, family placement and youth offending. He has also worked as a policy and planning manager with an English local authority. 

Brian has now retired from day to day work but remains a director and maintains an ongoing interest in this field, continuing to coach sport Judo and associated practical personal defence training. His consultancy experience includes service review in a range of settings, including child protection, children looked after, criminal justice partnerships, youth offending, disability including learning disability. He has also led in the development of service user empowerment programmes, on systems review projects in social care and health organisations and in the construction of statutory plans.

Brian is also an experienced staff safety and managing challenging behaviour consultant, and is particularly interested in developing management approaches to this strategically important area.