Fluent Essays

SOCW 6520 Assignment: Week 3 Blog Refer to the topics covered in this weeks resources and incorporate them into your blog. Post a blog post that includes 300 to 500 words my field experience is going to be at Sound options in Tacoma Washington I will be doing some in office work, some home visits but mostly telecommunication. For the telecommunication part I need to talk about how to set up my computer so that clients can not see any personal things like pictures or things that can identify my location ect. I will not be driving clients during my internship. This is a social work internship  Questions in bold then answers A description of your personal safety plan for your field education experience An explanation of how your personal safety plan might differ from your agency safety plan during your field education experience I have uploaded this chapter please use something out of every bullet point Birkenmaier, J., & Berg-Weger, M. (2018). The practicum companion for social work: Integrating class and fieldwork (4th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson. Chapter 3, “Safety in Social Work Settings” (pp. 63-77) Incite citations and full references APA format 7th additionO R I G I N A L P A P E R When Social Workers Are Stalked: Risks, Strategies, and Legal Protections Cheryl Regehr • Graham D. Glancy Published online: 1 October 2010 � Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 Abstract By virtue of their work, social workers are at risk of becoming victims of stalking. This is because social workers assist individuals who suffer from major mental health problems that may cause them to develop delusional beliefs about their therapists, and because social workers may need to exercise authority against individuals with personality disturbances that present a risk to others. Sur- veys suggest that 16\% of social workers have been stalked at one point in their career by a client. Stalking of social workers by clients has far-reaching personal and profes- sional implications, potentially affecting all aspects of an individual’s life. This paper reviews the nature and inci- dence of stalking of social workers, the legal remedies available to social workers who are victims of stalking, and strategies for protection. Keywords Social workers � Stalking � Violence � Threats � Client From 1996–2002, Shauna Bailey, a social worker in Lon- don England, was stalked by her client Richard Jan. Ms. Bailey was a member of a mental health team that assessed Mr. Jan under the Mental Health Act after they were contacted by his mother regarding her concerns about his mental health and his threats to harm her. He was arrested in the community under mental health legislation but was then later released from hospital as he did not meet the criteria for involuntary admission. This marked the onset of Jan’s harassment of Ms. Bailey and others. Ms. Bailey sustained injuries requiring hospitalization on two occasions after being attacked on the front doorstep of her home late at night by Jan. He bombarded her with phone calls. He followed her car, smashed it up, and set it on fire. The ordeal ended when Ms. Bailey moved from her home, quit her job and changed her name. In his 7 years of inflicting terror on Ms. Bailey, Jan also had numerous other victims including a west London City Councillor whose home he firebombed. Jan, who was dubbed by Detective Chief Inspector David Poole as ‘‘Britain’s worst stalker’’, was convicted in 2004 on two counts of arson and causing a public nuisance (BBC 2004; Mintowt-czyz and Edwards 2004). While dramatic incidents such as that of Shauna Bailey may be rare, they are not isolated. A Canadian random survey of 171 social workers found that 16.3\% reported being stalked at some point in their careers (MacDonald and Sirotich 2005). Other surveys while not specifically addressing stalking behavior, report high rates of threats and actual harm to social workers by clients (MacDonald and Sirotich 2001; Newhill 1996; Rey 1996; Regehr et al. 2004). For instance, MacDonald and Sirotich (2001, 2005) indicate that 87.8\% of social workers in their study reported verbal Safety in Social Work Settings THE SCOPE OF PERSONAL SAFETY RISKS IN SOCIAL WORK Have you wondered about your physical safety at your practicum site? Does the thought of home visits create feelings of anxiety? Have family members worried about your choice of profession because of safety issues? Have you heard other students and faculty discuss agency safety issues? Has the absence of any discussion of safety worried you? Many students, especially beginning students, have concerns about safety and security and struggle with the decision to voice their concerns to their professors, other students, and their field instructors. Students may be reluctant to discuss safety fears and concerns with others for fear of being viewed as uncommitted to the profession or to clients. Other students may assume that the role of the social worker is viewed strictly as one of helper and enabler and cannot fathom it being viewed as a threat. However, the practice of social work typically does involve some degree of risk. If not addressed, concerns about personal safety can significantly affect learning opportunities in the field placement. This chapter will address safety concerns associated with social work and provide guidelines that can assist you in minimizing the risk of harm. Corina Wonders about Her Safety On her first day of practicum, Corina was given a tour of the detention facility, introduced to all of the staff, oriented to the various systems, and provided with agency manuals and policy guidelines. She began shadowing other social workers and sat in on their group therapy sessions. On the third day, she remembered to ask about the unusual name of the unit in which she would be completing her practicum. She was told it was named after a staff member who had been shot to death by a client in the office a year ago. She was shocked. She had no idea that this practicum could pose a threat to her well-being. Are her fears real? What would you do on learning this information? Faced with this kind of information, most students would be concerned about working at the agency. Some might even contemplate requesting a transfer to another agency. Other students might consider the likelihood of this kind of incident occurring twice to be very small and so disregard safety as a serious matter. Should safety be a concern for students in practicum? While most social work employers adequately address safety issues (Whitaker, Weismiller, & Clark, 2006), research findings suggest that concern over personal safety issues in social work is warranted. Estimates of the proportion of social workers who report experience with work-related violence range from 42\% to over 80\% (Criss, 2010; Ringstad, 2009; Winstanley & Hales, 2014). The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (2002) defines workplace violence as “violent acts (including physical assaults and threats of assaults) directed toward persons at work or on duty.” Almost half of all nonfatal injuries in