CREATING AND SUSTAINING A SAFE AND SUPPORTIVE CULTURE
Item 1
Strategies:
- Conduct safety surveys to ensure that physical safety concerns are brought to the attention of the organization.
- Ensure that supervisors check in with staff regularly about physical safety issues and concerns.
- Review policies and procedures for how dangerous client situations are addressed and update these as needed.
- Have policies in place (see Domain 3, “Secondary Traumatic Stress-Informed Policies and Procedures”) to ensure safety for staff who are in the community providing home visits and conducting investigations. This might include having staff do field work in pairs, having emergency cell phones, and having a supervisor on call who checks in with staff when there are after-hours visits.
- Have policies in place that ensure that those working in the office are safe.
- Provide clear direction on what to do if a client makes a threat against a staff member and what actions the organization will take to protect both the staff member and rest of the staff.
- Consider buddy systems so that no one is working alone. If that is not possible, look at what other security is in place to ensure safety.
- Regularly do walk-throughs to ensure that building safety measures are in place and working (alarms, lighting, etc.).
- When a CAC is part of a larger organization, advocate for physical safety for staff and help educate the larger organization on the risks that may exist for staff.
Implementation Resources:
Publications
- “Trauma-Informed Organizational Change Manual.” On page 85 of this free downloadable guide, developed by the University of Buffalo School of Social Work, there is detailed information on how to conduct an environmental walk-through to review physical safety in the workplace.
Select Action Plan to begin to organize and implement next steps.