Iris had all the potential to be a really good child and youth care worker - young (25 something) - lively empathetic, likable, quick to learn and very, very keen.
She arrived ironically, just as the in-house staff training was a PART Course.: Professional Assault Response Training. The thinking was that we work with the risk of having to deal with assaultive behaviour . Many of the parents, children and young people are assaultive. They will adopt assault as a way of dealing with the issues that they face with other people..... and a properly educated trained response at best can de-escalate assaultive behaviour and restore equilibrium. At least - a crisis assaultive moment be reached it can reduce or eliminate hurt and injury. PART sets out to do this.
Iris had long hair. Black and worn loose to her shoulders _ just a little natural free curl in it. So she was asked in the Training programme to allow the trainer to use her as the "victim" in demonstrating how an assaultive person may put their hand or hands and fingers into a persons hair, thentwist it around thw hand and so drag the professsional by the hair. There is no escape. The best you can do is to place your hands on top of the attackers and press down to reduce the hurt and the power of the attackers pull and drag. Iris was the perfect example of the risk attached to a hairpulling assault. She handled it perfectly
The phone call came three days after the course.
" I'm leavign. I'm packed. I'm waiting for a taxi to take me to the airport. I'm going and I'm never coming back' I wanted to do this job. I'll never try to do this work ever again."
She was sobbing as she spoke. No amount of talking persuaded her to allow a face to face explanation of what happened, but she was persuaded to tell her story on the phone.
An 18 year old girl in the house and not a school like the others, on psychiatric medication and alone in the house attacked her in the kitchen. The girl did exactly as the trainer had demonstrated - grabbed and twisted Iris' hair, pulled her to kitchen drawer, got hold of a kitchen knife .
Iris used the technique she had been taught. She pressed down ontop of the girls hands to reduce pain and power and managed to get under the kitchen table for protection and to escape the knife.
The girl let go and ran into the street.
Iris did not say what the build up of the trigger to this incident was.
No amount of counselling, persuasion or consoling persuaded her to stay and by 3.00 that afternoon she was on an aeroplane from Johannesburg to Durban - 600kilometers away.
As it turned out, three weeks later, Iris did go back into the work of child and youth care in a facility in Durban
But the questions remain.
Questions for talk.
Is staff training adequate to equip child and youth care workers to observe, respond and de-escalate assaultive behaviour before it reaches crisis point.?
Do we have policies and procedures in place to maintain appropriate levels of supervision of children and young people when the risk of assaultive behaviors exist?
Do we have proper procedures for the management, control and use of anything that could be used as a weapon... the kitchen seems like a place of focus for this.
Can staff be required to wear hair clothing and accessories in styles that may reduce the level of risk in assaultive incidents?
How quickly and effectively can we reach a child and youth care worker for trauma counselling and de-briefing as part of staff support.?Can staff lay charges against a child or a young person in their professional care?
Is assault by a client an internal/agency matter or can we act as private citizens even within the context of our professional capacity?
What do you think?
Thoughts for talk.
No comments:
Post a Comment