Evaluating the Violence Prevention Program
One essential element that cannot be overlooked is to evaluate the violence
prevention program on a scheduled basis, and immediately after an incident has occurred. If the program is not evaluated at least annually, this and other problems may never be detected.
As with any program, personnel, facilities, and issues can change within a year and updates must be maintained. Procedures may break down if they are not exercised regularly. In these instances, practice may be necessary to keep procedures effective.
After an incident, it's important to evaluate the program to see if there are any changes that should be made immediately to prevent a similar incident from occurring in the future.
Steps in the Evaluation Process
- Appoint
knowledgeable employees to conduct the evaluation to
ensure effective results..
- Conduct
an initial assessment to determine what program
components are in place.
- Analyze
the components of the violence prevention program.
- Measure
improvement based on lowering the frequency and
severity of workplace violence.
- Identify
those components that require improvement.
- Conduct
and review the results of an employee survey.
- Develop
ways to improve ineffective components.
- Educate,
train and implement changes in the program.
- Devise
and update your system for measuring improvement.
- Keep
abreast of new strategies to deal with violence.
Assessment
and analysis
The initial
assessment is important to make sure all critical components
of the violence prevention program are present. Once program
components have been assessed, it's important to analyze each
of the components to determine what they look like. Most
components will actually some sort of procedure or process.
In the
analysis these procedures and processes are broken down into
distinct steps. Each step is then looked at to make sure it
is necessary and is effective. The analysis process involves
breaking down each component of the program.
Important
processes and procedures to analyze:
- Post
incident response procedures.
- Supervisor/employee
walkaround inspection procedures. Do they assess for
violence prevention measures?
- Review the employee survey process. Is is producing
valid, reliable date?
- Review
staff meetings/safety committee meetings to determine
if they address violence prevention issues.
- Review
workplace violence reporting procedures.
- Track the
process of reporting problems and making engineering
and administrative control measures.
- Review
the violence prevention program education and
training process.
It's also a
good idea to include local law enforcement representatives, legal staff,
OSHA, insurer, or private consultants and/or other
expert third-party experts to evaluate program processes and
procedures.
Important policies,
plans, reports and records to analyze
- Review
the written violence prevention plan.
- Violence
prevention program policies. Policies should be
informative and directive.
- Log of
injuries and illnesses (OSHA 200 Log) to identify
trends in workplace violence-related injuries
relative to "baseline" rates.
- Safety
inspection reports.
- Medical
reports of worker injury.
- Incidents
of assault and threats of violence.
- Post
incident response reports.
- Information
on high-risk clients with a history of past violence.
- Minutes
of safety meetings.
- Job
hazard analyses.
- Records
of relevant training conducted, attendees and
qualification of trainers.
Evaluate the
program after an incident
After an
incident occurs, it is especially important to evaluate the
workplace violence prevention program and assess its
effectiveness. Deficiencies should be identified and
corrective action taken. It's crucial to know what risks
existed prior to a threat or incident so that the evaluation
team can determine what additional security measures, if any,
should he put in place after a threat or violent incident.
- If
warranted, provide increased worksite protection when
serious threats of violence have been made, such as
requesting additional police patrols, hiring security
guards, and/or alerting organizations or people who
might be affected.
- Consider
the costs and benefits of providing increased
protection to threatened employees, such as changing
their phone numbers, relocation, loaning them a
cellular phone, or providing them with a quick
response distress button or information about where
this device can be obtained.
- Counsel
potential victims about various civil and criminal
options available to them, such as obtaining a
restraining order.
When all is
said and done
Unfortunately,
it does not appear that violence is decreasing in our
society. Ultimately, this violence is being played out in the
workplace. For legal, and more importantly, human reasons,
businesses can no longer choose to ignore this important
issue. These guidelines were created to help you in planning
how your organization can address this issue. OSHA’s
violence prevention guidelines are an essential component to
workplace safety and health programs.
OSHA
recognizes the importance of effective safety and health
program management in providing safe and healthful
workplaces. OSHA believes that the performance oriented
approach of the guidelines provides employers with
flexibility in their efforts to maintain safe and healthful
working conditions. OSHA has additional information to
help you with this and many other safety and health issues.
Source: OPM Office of Personnel Management www.opm.gov
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