Is My Client Safe? Am I Safe?
Client, clinician, and community safety should be the ultimate goal of every mental health professional. Daily, we encounter suicidal and violent clients. Sometimes, these clients even become aggressive during assessment, therapy sessions, or on inpatient, detox, or residential treatment units or may even engage in spree shootings or other mass violence. Accurate and rapid assessment are vital as well as a rapid and effective response. Encountering such dangerous clients often induces the fight or flight response in clinicians.

This practical, interactive seminar will introduce the clinician to the FOCUS method of intervening with dangerous clients. Clinicians will learn to rapidly assess and respond to these clients with effective interventions and crisis planning that improve client and community safety while protecting the clinician's liability. Participants will leave the course with powerful verbal de-escalations skills, knowledge of how to design a safe facility, and ways to manage armed clients. Instruction will be provided regarding the clinician's ethical responsibilities, especially related to the duty to warn and protect.

Course Content

FOCUS

• F - Formulate
  • quickly formulate an assessment of client, clinician, and community safety
• O - Organize
  • quickly organize a response
• C - Commit
  • obtain a public commitment to the plan

• U - Undertake Action
  • implement the plan
• S - Succeed Safely

MANAGE VOLATILE CLIENTS IN THE SESSION, CLINIC, OR FACILITY

• Recognize nonverbal "tells" of client stress
• Understand how to manage armed clients
• Develop effective panic systems
• Understand the escalation continuum and effective responses for de-escalation
• Understand body proxemics and spacing
• Create "comfort" or "calming rooms" for clients in facilities
• Employ sensory stimulation techniques to de-escalate clients

DEVELOPING SAFETY PLANS

• Understand the importance of public commitments
• Document effectively to decrease your liability
• Learn the elements necessary to protect clients and the community

"THE CLIFF" SCHEMATA AND RISK FACTORS

• Help clients recognize the interplay of their risk factors for suicidal, self-injurious, or violent behavior

• Assist clients in creating plans to manage each identified risk factor

Implement effective impulse control cards