The flip side: Violence against clients by workers

CrossCurrents

There are no exact statistics about violent incidents in homecare visits in which the client is the victim. Determining exactly what constitutes violence is more complex in the case of client experience because he or she is the recipient of care and thus more vulnerable to non-physical abuse such as undermining of hope or self esteem. Anita McNeil, an occupational therapist in Winnipeg, Manitoba, remembers such an experience: “A client I worked with had a support worker in the community who worked intensively with her for many years. Somewhere along the line, the support worker seemed to lose belief in the client’s ability to recover and began treating her in a manner which conveyed no hope and no respect. This was very damaging to the client. After much work, the client came to accept the need for a change of worker. The change has been amazing – her progress since changing to a new worker has been remarkable.” McNeil says that clients are often unwilling to make official complaints because they are afraid of the consequences.