Violence against those who provide in-home care continues to be a risk for therapists, nurses, and social workers who visit their clients in the client’s homes. Ennis and Douglas use their almost fifty years of combined experience in the fields of policing and child protection to show you how to be safer in your practice. They are not trying to convince you that violence toward workers in the helping professions is a problem; you probably know that already. What they do is to show you changes you can make to perform your job more safely.

In this book are ways to prevent and reduce violence toward home-care workers using readily available tools and skills. The authors walk you through the necessary steps to examine your behaviors and the risks in a situation. This will help you be safer when the client visits your office or when you go into the field. They examine safety awareness, discuss the use of collateral information, and show you the importance of file information. They stress the need for ongoing safety assessment in the ever-changing situation in a client’s home. Finally, they show you how to protect yourself should all else fail.

Charles Ennis and Janet Douglas have worked together for more than 10 years investigating high-risk child abuse complaints where there were concerns about the potential for violence. Until his retirement Ennis was a member of the Emergency Response Team Tactical Unit and a Gang Crime Unit for the Vancouver Police Department. Douglas has been a frontline child protection social worker in Vancouver, B.C. for the past 21 years, working with families in crisis. The authors have trained numerous agencies and their staff on how to be safe when working in the field.