Covering a speech — Workplace Violence. College of Public Health
Ashley Withrow told an audience of Public Health majors and Public Health professions on Friday, that workplace violence has a big impact on caregivers in today’s world and what organizations and institutions could be doing to address this issue.
The presentation and speech given Friday afternoon was held in the Moulton Hall Ballroom at Kent State. Withrow is Cleveland Clinic’s Victim Advocate Program Director.
This presentation was given in order to inform the audience how to recognize Workplace Violence and to help prevent it from happening. The presentation explored the definition of Workplace Violence, prevalence and impact and response to workplace violence from a public health perspective.
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) says workplace violence is “any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site.”
Withrow went through the different types of workplace violence which include; criminal intent, costumer/client, employee/employee issues, and domestic intimate partner violence.
Showing different examples of workplace violence, Withrow wanted to inform her audience of incidents some may think are not fitting to the definition but are still considered “workplace violence incidents.”
The OSHA definition does not talk about “intent”. There is no part of the OSHA definition that says the person must intend to cause that injury.
“We’ve had this conversation many times in our group at the clinic and what this lends itself to is a conversation around reporting all incidents because if you experience this situation on an ongoing basis, perhaps you continue to get injured, you might have some impact and start to question if this is a field you want to continue in,” Withrow said.
Throughout her presentation Withrow discussed who is most at risk in these types of situations and how we can prevent this from happening to caregivers and people who have these types of jobs.
“At an increased risk, we see; medical professionals, social workers, psychiatric services, and geriatric long term care settings, Withrow said. Many of these incidents that take place become detrimental to the mental health of a caregiver, so what are we doing to care for our caregivers?”
According to OSHA the general duty clause is to provide a safe workplace. Many hospitals have written procedures for this, human resources have education and training specific to the needs of these people, leaderships standards include the code of conduct that defines acceptable behavior.
Prevention was a big discussion in Withrow’s speech. She believes that prevention is done through education.
Prevention before the incident means to have a good understanding about what contributes to Workplace Violence incidents. Understanding patient and visitor risk factors, setting risk factors, caregiver risk factors, protective factors and education.
Also discussed in her speech, prevention during the incident; non-abusive psychological intervention (NAPPI) and prevention after the incident; reporting and communication, impact of leadership.
“Providing this information to individuals is crucial so they are equipped to manage other risk factors,” Withrow said.
Throughout her presentation members of the audience stopped to ask follow-up questions based off of information Withrow was giving to them.
This was a presentation the College of Public Health was excited to have at Kent State because of the importance of Workplace Violence and informing students and staff what they can do to seek help when needed and prevent it.
Audience member Denise Baker said, “I was excited to come to this presentation today, I’m here for work, my boss encouraged many of his employers to come today and I was more than willing to do so.”
Baker works in the public health field as a caregiver in an assisted living for elderly people. She agrees with Withrow in the fact that prevention on this topic is important to those who are at a higher risk and that this topic needs to be of discussion more often.
Jennifer Miller, Assistant Dean of Students at the college of Public Health said, “At the College of Public Health it’s important to us that we set up events like this in regard to our students as well as Public Health professionals. Having Ashley Withrow come speak was very beneficial as she spoke on a topic many people are not as aware of as they should be and I thought she did an outstanding job getting her message across to her audience.”
The College of Public Health sets up various events and presentations for their students and other professionals to attend in their benefit. Miller also said that Ashley Withrows presentation brought in more of an audience than expected.
The workplace violence presentation and speech was aimed to shed a light on a topic that needs to be discussed more in today’s world as we see this happening much more often than we used to and Ashley Withrow made this clear.
