Client Violence is a Problem Across Social Work Settings, Author Finds

Publications

By Paul R. Pace

Before Christina E. Newhill, PhD, LCSW, became a social work educator, she worked for eight years as a 24-hour mobile crisis worker. She said she experienced four incidents of client violence. In the early 1980’s, safety training for social workers was scarce to non-existent, she said.

After earning her PhD, Newhill accepted a faculty position at the University of Pittsburgh and received funding to perform a random survey of 1,600 MSW-level NASW members. The questionnaire asked about their experiences with client violence, specifically property damage, threats, and attempted and actual physical assaults. She got a 71% return rate, which was unusually high, she said.

“That data—which definitively showed that client violence is a problem across social work settings—my own experiences, and the deaths of several social workers in the line of duty, inspired the writing of this book,” Newhill said of her new NASW Press text, Managing Client Violence: A Practical Guide for Social Workers. Newhill said the book’s key takeaways are:

• Violence in the workplace is a common problem for a wide range of workers across settings whose job involves direct ongoing contact with the public.
• Allowing client violence to occur harms both social workers and their clients. Interventions with violent clients include verbal de-escalation, behavior control via setting limits, counseling and medication, protective placement, and the use of empathy and the strengths approach.
• Experiencing an act of client violence can have a significant emotional, psychological and physical impact on a social worker.

This book and other NASW Press products are available at NASWPress.org