As child protective services worker Denise Smernes walked into the home of her clients in Alameda County, California, she was shocked to see a teenager inside the house loading an automatic weapon. A shouting match erupted between the police officer accompanying Smernes and the woman who answered the door of the apartment. Emotions were escalating fast. In her mind, Smernes flashed through strategies to defuse the situation. "If I don't do something fast, we're going to get shot," she recalls.

Smernes (picture above) turned to the officer and ordered him to leave the apartment immediately and wait for her in his car. He initially refused. "I'm not leaving you with these people," he said.

She knew she had to convince him. "Leave before someone gets hurt," she insisted. Then she quickly reassured the residents she was not a threat to them or to the children she was there to check. "I'm not here to take the kids, I just need to make sure they are safe," she recalls telling the woman.

Such flashpoints are increasingly common between social workers and the clients they serve. Ten years ago, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) first began to hear about scattered attacks faced by the group's 150,000 members. In a 2002 NASW survey of 800 school social workers, 19 percent had been victims of violence and 63 percent had been threatened.

Experts say the very nature of social work can thrust them into tense situations at the office and in their clients' homes. It can pull them into unsafe neighborhoods where they're in danger of attack.

School social workers often are called upon to counsel students with serious behavior problems. Child protective services workers are routinely sent into dangerous environments to remove children from a home and to investigate cases of suspected physical abuse and sexual molestation. There they may be exposed to verbal abuse, death threats, and even gunfire. And although social workers are often accompanied by police officers to help them do their job safely, the presence of law enforcement can make their clients more defensive and hostile.

"When you can get a police officer, it is safer. But I've had social workers who've asked the police officer to come in, and the officer has said, 'I'm not going in there,'" said Eva Skolnik-Acker, chairwoman of the NASW Massachusetts chapter's Committee for the Study and Prevention of Violence Against Social Workers.

Although fatalities are rare, two recent killings of social workers exemplify the risk they face: the 2004 murder of social worker Teri Zenner during a routine visit to a client in Kansas, and the 2006 killing of social worker Sally Blackwell, who was found dead in a field in Texas after repeatedly being threatened during her work investigating child abuse and neglect cases.

NASW has stepped up its training programs in recent years to help prevent other tragedies. In Michigan, social workers have pushed the passage of a bill that would require two social workers be present when conducting a home visit in a dangerous situation. But many social workers believe that two workers should be present on all visits, saying that it's impossible to predict when a situation will turn threatening.

The Michigan bill also calls for child protective service workers to go through formal training in handling dangerous situations and would make self-defense training available to those who request it.

In a 1997 NASW survey of school social workers, participants reported they were pushed, grabbed, and shoved, had their hair pulled by angry clients, and had objects thrown at them. Some of the attackers were students or their parents. In the survey of school social workers, 77 percent reported their attackers were students they were counseling, and 49 percent said the attacker was a parent.

Social workers responding to the survey also reported feeling threatened by violence in the neighborhoods they visit, especially when they visit clients in their homes. Smernes was once interviewing a mother and child when bullets began flying through the house she was visiting. As it turned out, the mother lived next to a drug dealer, and drive-by shootings were not an uncommon experience in the neighborhood.

In Los Angeles, social worker Barbara Dean said a male caller once reported a phony case of child abuse to a hot line where she worked. When she went to the address he reported, the man was lying in wait. He grabbed her, but she managed to escape. The man continued to call the hot line to say he liked her voice.

It's hardly surprising that many social workers fear for their safety. A 2004 survey done by the NASW with researchers at the University of Albany in New York found that 44 percent of 5,000 licensed social workers responded affirmatively to a question about whether they were concerned about their personal safety in their jobs.

Michael Yee has been an emergency response social worker for 17 years. He estimates that he has probably investigated over 4,000 cases. Yee has found himself in the middle of drug raids, been threatened with knives, had a police officer point a shotgun at him, and was once even threatened with a frying pan full of hot oil.

"The fear factor is an important part of the job. You can't make mistakes out there," Yee says. "You have to be very cautious and have a lot of street smarts. You're the first one through the door, and you never know what you are stepping into."

Violent assaults are not the only hazard on the job. Much more common, social workers say, is trauma from verbal assaults and the job stress they face from managing large caseloads that require many hours of overtime each week. Because social service agencies are often understaffed, social workers are often assigned much higher caseloads than they can manage adequately, Skolnik-Acker notes.

For some workers, the stress is overwhelming. Maryellen McFadden worked as a social worker in the child protective services department in Contra Costa County, California, for 12 years. But workloads were so high that she often worked between 10 and 20 hours of overtime every week, she says. In January 2000, the overload took its toll. McFadden suddenly began experiencing chest pains and labored breathing, and began to weep uncontrollably. She was forced to go on stress leave.

The NASW has a number of prevention and safety tips to protect social workers against physical assault:

Some states have gone beyond training. After the death of social worker Lisa Putman, Michigan state officials pumped more money into equipment and resources to beef up safety for social workers on the job.

"What it did was really made the agency take a hard look at the precautions we were putting in place to protect our workers," said Karen Smith, a spokeswoman for the Family Independence Agency. The state issued workers special cellular telephones that act as two-way radios. State cars were also retrofitted with alarm systems, and a pilot project under way gives the state's child protective services department access to law enforcement records, allowing workers to be alerted when they are visiting homes where crimes have been committed. "Since then," she said, "our workers feel much more comfortable they will be protected."

-- This piece was based on a series of interviews that Berkeley freelance writer and editor Richard Bermack conducted for the SEIU 535 Dragon, a newspaper for service employees. CHI editor Psyche Pascual contributed reporting.

Further Resources

National Association of Social Workers (NASW). Acts as a legislative and advocacy group for its roughly 155,000 members.

202/408-8600

http://www.naswdc.org

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Established in 1970 by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, this federal research agency makes recommendations to employers help prevent job-related injuries and illnesses.

800/2332-4636

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

Part of the Department of Labor, creates and enforces safety and health regulations governing the workplace.

800/321-6742

http://www.osha.gov

References

Last updated August 5, 2009
Copyright © 2000 Consumer Health Interactive