Protecting Social Workers and Health Professionals from Workplace Violence Act of 2019

This year Congress may consider approving the Protecting Social Workers and Health Professionals from Workplace Violence Act of 2019; this is a policy that would help provide safety measures to social workers, health care workers, and human services professionals. This bill would especially protect those who provide services for high risk and dangerous situations and for other reasons. Representative  Brownley of California introduced the bill to the House of Representatives on November 18, 2019. It was then referred to the Committee on Education and Labor, and to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The purpose of this bill is to authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to award grants to States to provide safety measures to social workers, health workers, and human service professionals in dangerous and high risk situations. 

The bill will award grants to States, Indian Tribes, Tribal organizations, and urban Indian organizations to provide safety measures protecting these professionals. Grants that may be awarded to these States or organizations will provide support for certain safety precautions. Such safety measures include: installation of safety equipment, technical assistance and training for safety communications, training sessions and exercises for self defense, facility safety improvements, training in cultural competency, training to work with certain clients, resources and materials to educate staff on safety and awareness, support services, installation of a local data incident tracking systems to monitor threats and violence, and other prevention measures laid out by the Secretary. The installation of safety equipment includes communications or recording systems such as cell phones, tracking devices, or panic buttons used for foster care or other client visits to ensure safety. Facility safety improvements include barrier protection and security cameras. Training in cultural competency could include linguistic training, and training for minimizing conflict situations. Training social workers and other health professionals for work with certain clients include: clients with serious mental and substance use disorders, behavioral problems, and those who need help coping. The support services that would be implemented would be counseling and additional resources for those workers who have experienced safety issues or trauma in the workplace. 

In order for a State or organization to receive such a grant, they must submit an application to the Secretary accompanied by any information that the Secretary requires. Each application should describe the agencies that will receive funding and type of work done by the agencies, describe the specific activities for which the grant will be used, and include a budget, and assurance that the State or organization will continually evaluate the effectiveness of the safety measures provided by the grant. 

The cost of this bill is authorized to be appropriated $10 million for each year from 2021 through to 2025. That is the total amount of funding, so if each year 10 states received grants through this act, the grants would average $1 million per state per year, and over the course of five years, each state could hypothetically get a grant. But of course, the training needs in states like California, Texas, New York, and Florida would be much higher than in Wyoming, New Hampshire, Delaware, and North Dakota, so some states might get a few hundred thousand and others might get two or three million. The grant comes from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and requires follow up with those applicants who received the grant to continue receiving the money for their safety measures. Currently this bill has been passed by the House of Representatives and is currently waiting to be passed by the Senate. 

There are many healthcare professionals that would benefit from this bill. Many nurses face the fear of going to work each day, not knowing what kind of patients they will have that day. A majority of these nurses are those who work with older patients and those patients who have mental or behavior disorders. Some patients become violent with their nurses, sometimes on purpose, and sometimes through no fault of their own (for example, in some types of dementia). This bill would help make nurses feel more safe going to work each day. Whether it is because they now know self defense, or they have other trainings on how to handle dangerous situations. This bill would also help social workers who work in the field, out of the office. There have been many cases where social workers have gone out into the field, especially foster care visits or DCFS investigations, and have been injured, harmed, or assaulted on the job. For example, in September of 2017 Andrew Sucher felt the DCFS was harassing him, so he knocked down social worker Pamela Knight and kicked her, mortally injuring her, so that she died a little over four months later. With this bill these social workers would be provided with self defense training, as well as provided with GPS/bluetooth tracking so that supervisors and law enforcement know where the worker is placed. Overall, this bill will provide not only peace of mind to these workers, but it will also provide them with concrete measures to remain safe in the workplace.