Public Hearing on

"Proposed Standard for Safety and Security in the Public Sector throughout New York State"

    Good Morning

    My Name is Vivian Afuwah. I am a Certified Social Worker with the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities at the Brooklyn Developmental Center. Crisis has historically presented an opportunity for the profession to define itself. This hearing, on a proposed workplace violence prevention standard, strongly demonstrates that social work is highly impacted by this hazardous condition in the workplace.

    I would like to thank the Board for their understanding and wiliness to address workplace violence and for giving me this opportunity to come before you to share my personal experience with workplace violence. Also, I want to personally extend my thanks to Mr. Jonathan Rosen, for his tireless efforts in continuing to keep this issue of workplace violence in the forefront.

    I come here today because I am very concerned about workers’ safety and I want the Hazard Abatement Board to recommend an enforceable, statewide, standard on workplace violence prevention. Trauma is about violation and workplace violence violates the safety for all, not just its victims but the very core of the work environment as the act itself unfolds.

    Let me tell you a little about my personal experience in getting assaulted by a client in the workplace. Picture this; a male, approximately 205 pounds, solid, stocky, strong and psychotic, suddenly and viciously coming up behind you. He grabs the back of your neck and starts choking you, and this assault behavior escalates, charged with intensity. Well, not only was I petrified, so were the other patients, and it took an equally strong male staff who intervened to rescue me. ! As I reflect upon this, anywhere from 5-8 minutes span of time, I QUIVER as I remember!

    Workplace violence is pervasive and the severity of the problem is surely not a new phenomenon and it continues to grow. Assault on the job, by the very clients that we are there to provide care to, continues to grow and frankly evokes scary feelings. This crisis has got to be addressed and statewide standards are desperately needed.

    In my personal experience, I felt my employer did provide the necessary support in addressing my assault. I am sure other workers have been assaulted and have felt the same as I did.

Show more sensitivity to how I may have been feeling. I believe my employer saw me as the professional and not as a victim of an assault who needed to be treated as any other victim who was physically violated. Ladies and gentlemen, I am not suggesting that the Police authority needed to be summoned. I understand that my agenciy’s services are unique in that our clients have special needs and therefore only under severe circumstance would law-enforcement be summoned. However, what I am expressing is victimization without proper action undermines the severity of any offense.

SHOULD:

Provide critical incident debriefing to the victim, in my case the Clinician. Prior to and since my workplace assault, I do not believe my agency or other entities serving in the human services have established a rapid response protocol to provide for an appropriate emergency response to an assault in the workplace. Again, I want to thank the NYS Hazard Abatement Board in holding these kind of hearings on workplace violence prevention.

Thank you