Support worker, abuse the shared soloution

This is something that I have wanted to write about for a very long time but really haven’t had the guts to write about it and I know that I bang on about people with disabilities being abused and this is true, but we also need to talk about the flip side of this being, that Support workers do get abused at work as well.

I need to put a really important point in here as well that have emotions and I have blowen up at support workers in that past but what is important is how you handle it and what is considered abuse differs from person to person but from a legal perspective it can fall into a couple of different areas.  

I have taken this from Safe work Australia, and it also documents that home care workers are in a higher risk of abuse.

Workplace violence and aggression can be: 

·       physical assault – such as biting, scratching, hitting, kicking, pushing, grabbing, and throwing objects.  

·       coughing or spitting on someone on purpose 

·       sexual assault or any other forms of indecent physical contact  

·       harassment or aggressive behaviour that creates a fear of violence, such as stalking, sexual harassment, verbal threats and abuse, yelling and swearing. 

·       hazing or initiation practices for new or young workers 

·       violence from a family or domestic relationship when this occurs at the workplace, including if the person’s workplace is their home. 

Violence may come from anyone in the workplace, including an employer, supervisor, co-worker, client, patient or customer. 

 However we need to understand that some people with disabilities have what is in the industry called behaviours of concern and these are behaviours that they are aware of but might not be able to control and these are where some things that come into play being having an appropriate level of training to the persons needs and being able to adjust the level of support to that persons level of need.

To understand that its not about you and that behaviour is a form of communication and we see that this communication can be because a client isn’t getting needs met in a healthy way, so any form of attention is good attention even if we see it as negative.

Also, we need to understand in the case of mental disability and mental illness a person might not be fully attached to reality, and they might not understand what they are doing, and we see that this is where specialist training or a background in mental health would be handy since people need to be aware that disability doesn’t equal, and excuse. It does equal a reason that you can’t do things but it’s not an excuse.

So, we need to be held accountable for our actions, but I see a disturbing number of support workers that are used and abused, and there is a no easy way to protect yourself, but I have some suggestions, and these were gathered from support workers, as well as nursing staff and pharmacists, in how to protect yourself,

·       Have a service agreement and list what you can and can’t help with,

·       Have a record of your hours worked and keep good case notes and be honest in your case notes.

·       Have a life outside of work as you don’t want work to be your whole world.

·       If the client takes medications, have it in a dosage administration aid or have a two-person checklist for medication administration. (In cases of rations of support, it might be a client that just observes, if they understand what they are doing)

·       Have some self-defence training if needed.

·       Have or lean about redirection and positive behaviour support as it’s not all about you but it might be that they have.

§  Heard bad news.

§  Had a bad day.

§  Not achieved something they wanted to

§  Be frustrated they can’t do something that they used to be able to do.

§  Not understand that you’re not their mother or housekeeper.

§  They might not understand why someone has said no to them and is upset that they got told no.

So it’s really important to talk about it but understanding that it’s a job working with people and people who are vulnerable but have a voice and if they are nonverbal we need to find ways that they can communicate, it might be through apps on a phone, it might be though communication board, it might be through an iPad or computer but we need to remember just because someone is nonverbal doesn’t mean they have nothing to say and this assumption can lead to them being frustrated and they can’t express it.

So self-care becomes really important in this area so this is why it is so important to have a life outside of work and to have way of decompressing such as Yoga, meditation, watching a favourite show or it might be hobbies and don’t let anyone judge you for “nontraditional hobbies” but you need something away from work, It might be gaming, it might be cooking, it might be co playing or comic books. 

The other important thing is to look after your mental health so this might be finding a mentor or a councillor that you can talk to without breaching someone’s confidentiality, as in small and even regional towns this could happen unintentionally, but we need to be very intentional about keeping people’s business to ourselves and even asking consent to share with even well-meaning family members.

I know that most support agencies will have a form that if they have family members there they won’t talk about clients unless they have express consent to do so, but it can be done safely in a mental health professionals office.

It’s a hard topic to cover but we need to be aware that it does happen and that if you are working with a person who has challenging behaviours or behaviours of concern to not take it personally, understand it might not be you and know how to redirect the person to be able to better regulate their emotions or to navigate the situation better. Such as redirection, budgeting, or simply falling back on the HALT fame work, working with the person to work out if they are Hungry, Angry( and if it’s a reasonable response or an automatic response) Lonely or tired and so lonely finding them a social group that fits their needs it might be a day centre or a social group, such as a sewing or wood working group, co play or D and D table top games or a board game network, or helping them to create one themselves.

Tired is simply let them sleep or if it is long term to help them to get to the root cause so it might be an infection, a sleep disorder or bad sleep hygiene.

So you might be thinking how does this prevent abuse to support and other home care workers well when the basics are covered we see that people are  happier to accept direction and guidance and I am realising as adults we all need to be able to accept support and guidance it is simply a mature thing to do so let’s work together to bring accountability and bring to light support worker abuse, and this leads into my next post of behaviours that are unethical in a support worker such as “ buying  the shift” so buying the clients a gift when it’s not a special occasion and favouritism of clients in a housing situation, and not giving far attention when people give negative feedback as they might mask and it then can escalate to unusual behaviour’s.

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[i] Workplaceviolence and aggression - Overview | Safe Work Australia