Counselor and Client Safety

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Research on Counselor and Client Safety COUN5252- Crisis Assessment and Intervention Abstract Within a therapeutic relationship, both counselor and client safety are crucial to success. Although not a priority in the past, mental health counselors should receive safety training within their counselor education program. Counselors can be targets to both verbal and physical threats. Counselors must do their best to evaluate client safety in crisis situations. Self-harm, suicide and intimate partner violence are examples in which a counselor should be actively assessing levels of safety and risk of a client. When it comes to members of one’s community’s safety being at risk, the community mental health workers and law officials approaches to mentally disabled members should be evaluated. Counselor Safety In the article, A Survey of Safety Training in Rehabilitation Counselor Education Programs by Davis, Schultz, Anderson, and Bartley (2009), the article discusses the importance of safety training including counselor competence in identifying and responding to threatening incidents, communication, critical incident debriefing, and prevention, as well as conflict and lifestyle management. The authors express the importance of infusing safety topics into counselor education programs. An important concern in the counseling and social work field is the counselor or social worker being a target of violence. The most prevalent form of violence towards counselors are verbal threats and counselors/social workers have reported being threatened by consumers and their associates in a multiplicity of settings including hospitals, mental health facilities, probation, child protection, and outpatient settings (Davis, Schultz, Anderson, & Bartley, 2009). Rehabilitation counselors often experience situations in which conflicts with clients have occurred
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