Council Connect Articles

New Workplace Safety Tool for Mental Health Services Providers

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Since early 2020, the Hospital Council has convened a Sacramento Region Behavioral Health Task Force, which consists of leaders of general acute care hospitals, stand-alone psychiatric hospitals, county behavioral health departments, and non-hospital outpatient behavioral health programs.

Workplace safety emerged as a top concern and for months, a working group of experts has been developing a simple tool to help leaders in any setting establish a culture and program of violence prevention and mitigation. This two-page document identifies key elements that every workplace safety program should have, without prescribing exactly how to achieve it.

Rather, it includes links to some tools and information that could guide workplace safety improvement. For settings with robust workplace safety features in place already, this can serve to gauge programs’ effectiveness and identify areas for improvement.