Personal Safety and Situational Awareness for Hospice Care Providers and Chaplains

Hospice care providers, whether nurses, social workers, or chaplains, face additional risks as lone workers. End of life care necessitates that hospice providers have staff available 24 hours a day for care and end-of-life family support.

End-of-life care presents unique challenges to hospice caregivers and chaplains.

Being called out at very late hours with little time to prepare, caregivers and chaplains must respond quickly to bring the required support and comfort to families in these times of loss. Night shift lone worker safety is always more challenging.

Grief counseling may be complicated by a wide variety of emotions displayed by different family members.  These may include frustration, anger, and the eruption of deeper-seated family conflicts triggered by the loss.

This training addresses these issues in addition to the inherent risks that lone workers face.

Duration:

• On-Site: 2-4-hour training (3 hour most commonly elected for includes 15 minute break)
• Distance Learning: Live Interactive Webinar- 90- 120 minutes duration.
• Customization: Content customized to best suit your needs. Customization included in pricing.
• Recorded, customized webinars:90-120 minutes, or broken down into modules to best suit your needs and housed on your LMS.
• Executive Overview: This live 30-minute WebEx presentation, relevant to your needs, is offered at no charge so that you may better evaluate if we will be a good fit for you.

Audience: Social Workers, Home Health Nurses, Hospice Coordinators, Chaplains

Topics / Guidelines for Social Worker Safety in the Workplace include:

• General situational awareness as the foundation to personal safety
• Intuition: A vital protective mechanism never to be ignored, deemed silly or irrational
• Understanding the victim selection process and presenting as a “hard” versus “soft” target
• Access control, lighting, and security considerations
• ”Four at the Door” Best strategy when waiting at the clients door.
• Body language, eye contact and not wearing sunglasses?
• Protocol while visiting clients in higher risk/ rural locations
• Taking that important call and programing my GPS late at night?
• “Use the Back Entrance” signage. What is my strategy?
• Weapons of opportunity
• Oxygen tanks. Safety storage and usage. Have the clients been trained?
• Communication planning and distress code phrases
• Route planning, safe havens, and medical consideration
• Armed robbery. The only two things you can control
• Attempted abduction. The primary and secondary locations
• Recognizing drug lab activity in the area
• Subtle indoor signs of previous drug manufacturing?
• Confronted over racial, religious, gender presentation bias. How will I deal with this?
• When emotions run high:
  • Introduction to de-escalation.  Emotional intelligence, Active listening, and Compassion.
• Demonstration of force deflection techniques (Not available in webinar format)
• Elevators, parking lots and isolated areas
• Random gunfire? Cover vs. Concealment?
• Vehicle break downs in a remote area with no cell coverage. A stranger offering help?
• A light source. When ever can carrying a small flashlight not be a good idea?