Social Worker Murdered During Home Visit–Time for the Profession to Act!

Posted on August 6th, 2008 in Safety, Social Work.

Unfortunately, the senseless murder of another social worker is making the headlines. You can find out more from the links below. I ask all my readers to keep the Brenda Yeager family in their thoughts and prayers. And I offer my heartfelt condolences and prayers on behalf of her family, colleagues, and loved ones.

Before addressing the matter of social worker safety in greater detail, please let me extend my sincerest condolences to Ms Yeager’s colleagues and supervisors. I tend to get a bit riled up when it comes to the topic of social worker safety, so please understand that nothing in my comments below is intended to suggest that anyone at Ms Yeager’s agency could have prevented this tragedy or is responsible for it.

Time for Action, Not Talk!
Having said that, I hope that the murder of another social worker will prompt social work administrators and NASW to step up to the plate and take constructive action. Dialogue is all well and good but something needs to be done now about the problem of client violence toward social workers.

Through the years many social workers from across the country have shared with me their concerns about their safety in the field. It’s frightening how many of them report that their supervisors deny their request to pair up with another worker on home visits. Some report being strongly discouraged from requesting a law enforcement presence, even in cases where agency policy indicates this is acceptable practice. There are too many front-line social workers out there who believe that their supervisors are more concerned with budgets than safety. Some have told me that even in cases where clients have been violent toward social workers in the past, they are still expected to carry out their investigations, assessments, and interventions alone. Their pleas for increased safety measures have fallen on deaf ears.

I hope that the tragedy of Ms Yeager’s murder will give some supervisors … and maybe even NASW … the motivation to deal with social worker safety decisively instead of merely talking about it. Isn’t it time for the social work profession to take action instead of waiting for legislators to enact stiffer penalties against those who hurt and kill us?

Time to Stop Blaming the Victim
I’m well aware that agencies have budgets and tight financial constraints. I just don’t think that’s a valid excuse for putting social workers at risk. I remember one administrator who told me that anyone who chooses this profession has no right to ask for additional safety measures on the job. No right? She went on to explain that a social worker knows when she takes almost any job that she may have to interact with potentially violent clients. Because she was aware of the potential for violence at the time she accepted her position, she has consequently chosen to bear any and all risk that arises as she carries out her duties. Therefore the agency has no obligation to assume the financial burden of assigning additional staff to assist or protect her if she is scheduled to meet with potentially violent clients.

I’d like to say that my conversation with that administrator was something out of the ordinary. But I can’t say that when my readers share similar experiences. So I ask the question: Is it ethical for an agency that purports to serve the vulnerable in society to take such a callous approach toward its staff when they become vulnerable?

Should Worker Safety Be a Standard of Ethical Practice?
How many more social workers have to be injured or murdered before agencies step up to the plate and consider their social workers as worthy of protection as the clients they serve? And what about NASW? When will they step up to the plate and incorporate worker safety into the code of ethics? As I read the code, I see that the social worker is obligated to take appropriate safety actions on behalf of a client. But a social work administrator doesn’t have the same obligation toward a social worker at risk.

So I ask the question: Does a social work supervisor violate basic ethical standards of the profession if s/he refuses a worker’s request for enhanced protective measures in the face of potential client violence? As I read the code, a supervisor can put the almighty dollar–the agency budget–ahead of worker safety and still comply with the code.

But what if the code were to include worker safety as a component of ethical social work administrative practice? Then social workers on the front lines would have something to cling to in their efforts to address their vulnerability to violence in the field. They could insist on agency policies and a supervisory response in compliance with the code.

NASW can take this matter into their own hands without waiting for the States or the Feds to pass legislation. They can back those social workers who risk their lives in the service of others by addressing their safety in the code of ethics. Do I think NASW will expand the code to include social worker safety? No, because it would give the endangered front line social worker the grounds to file an ethical complaint against a supervisor. It’s hard to imagine NASW taking that kind of stand. Too bad. It would go a long way toward addressing the lack of supervisory response reported by a number of my readers.

Why Not Spell it Out?
In a perfect world, something as obvious as consideration for social worker safety wouldn’t have to be specified in a code of ethics. But we all know our world … and our workplace … is less than perfect. If the code is structured to address certain no-brainers such as sex with a client, why doesn’t it address something vitally important like worker safety?

I don’t know a single social worker who would consider sex with a client ethical, and they would refrain from such behavior even if the code didn’t address the topic. But the code rightly addresses it just in case there are social workers out there who do need to be told what’s ethical and what’s not. So now I ask the question: Does the code need to do a better job of addressing what is and is not ethical for supervisors?

Surely there are social work supervisors out there who do everything in their power to protect their workers with adequate staffing, safety planning & training, safety policies, etc. We should be grateful for these supervisors and extend our appreciation to them! But the number of workers who get threatened, injured, and killed on the job seems to indicate that worker safety isn’t a no-brainer for every supervisor in the profession. And the mail I get from my readers backs this up.

Let me close by saying once again that I am not trying to suggest that anyone or any policy at Ms Yeager’s place of employment contributed to her death. I am also not suggesting that codifying social worker safety as ethical practice would prevent another social worker from ever being killed on the job. I am, however, suggesting that consideration of social worker safety as a component of ethical social work practice would provide increased safeguards for workers at risk. An addition to the code can be done fairly quickly–one would hope–and could be a powerful tool in the hands of those social workers who need some leverage in advocating for their own safety. For some, it may be the only tool. It’d sure be nice if NASW would do this for them, wouldn’t it?