Combatting violence: Subcommittee seeks structured response

By Nancy Wick
University Week

The UW’s procedures in situations of workplace violence should become more detailed and formalized, according to a preliminary report produced recently by the Subcommittee on Workplace Violence.

“What the subcommittee found was that a lot of what is done in violent or potentially violent incidents is ad hoc,” said Assistant Vice President for Human Resources Karen Kavanagh. “What they’ve tried to do is to put a structure around the process.”

The Subcommittee on Workplace Violence was convened in August by the Campus Security Advisory Committee with the idea of pulling together campus groups most involved in dealing with issues of violence and creating campus-wide procedures.

Valarie Olivers, a human resources supervisor and member of the subcommittee, said it was broken into several groups looking at different areas. The idea, she said, was to cover every aspect of violent incidents, from initial reporting to final review.

One major focus was prevention. In fact, the most immediate result of the subcommittee’s deliberations is a training series on preventing and handling workplace violence set to begin in January. Planned as a “train-the-trainer” program, the intensive, four-day workshop will involve about 30 selected individuals from all over campus who will then be responsible for taking what they’ve learned back to their areas.

“The whole goal is to train individuals to be able to train other individuals,” Kavanagh said. “It is incredibly difficult to do sessions for every one of our employees. It would just take too long.”

Instead, those who go through the “train the trainer” sessions will be responsible for getting current employees in their areas trained, and new hires will get training as part of their orientation. A private firm called Crisis Prevention Institute has been contracted to provide the initial training.

The subcommittee also concerned itself with what happens when an incident is reported. They recommended that when the level of threat warrants it, a workplace violence assessment team be formed. The team would be made up of representatives from the affected department, Human Resources, the UW Police Department, the Attorney General’s office and - depending on who is involved in the incident - Risk Management, the Provost’s Office or Student Affairs. Other units could be called upon as needed.

The assessment teams, according to the subcommittee report, would evaluate information and develop an action plan to address identified problems. The team would have the option of requesting an outside mental health practitioner to review the facts of the incident if needed.

“Units with representatives on assessment teams will name several people to serve so that there is someone available at all times,” Olivers said.

A Web-based workplace violence reporting form is being developed that will be used to help determine whether an assessment team is needed.

“The reporting mechanism is an important component because it will allow us to track incidents,” Kavanagh said. “That way we can see patterns and pay attention to problem areas.”

Although all units involved in action teams will maintain records of incidents, it is the UW Police Department that will set up and maintain a database for the overall management and analysis of records.

The subcommittee is also recommending that all cases handled by an assessment team be reviewed after the issue has been resolved. “The review gives us a way to continually improve,” Kavanagh said. “We ask ourselves if the right people were called at the right time, if we could have taken any other action, if there are other things we could do to make the work environment safer.”

Although the University already contracts with outside services to provide critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) to employees involved in violent incidents, the subcommittee has recommended that staff members be designated as coordinators of that service - to make sure that it is offered when appropriate.

In its efforts to formalize the University’s procedures, the subcommittee hopes that it will become clear to people on campus exactly what should be done when threats arise. “We don’t want people to have to guess or search around,” Olivers said. “The information should be accessible.”

Which is why the new reporting form and other information will be posted on the workplace violence Web site, http://www.washington.edu/admin/hr/pol.proc/work.violence/wk.viol.policy.html

The ultimate goal, of course, is to prevent violent acts by addressing problems before they escalate. Human Resources is, in fact, in the early stages of planning an in-house Employee Assistance Program that would provide various kinds of counseling and referral services to employees who need it.

But in the meantime, Kavanagh says, “We want people to know that we take threats very, very seriously.”