BROOKLYN — A recent early morning assault of a female worker at Kingsboro Psychiatric Center by an individual has renewed calls by CSEA to improve safety at the facility.
Forsythe
“This should have never happened,” said CSEA Kingsboro Psychiatric Center Local President Conrad Forsythe. “We need to have a meeting with the administration and our union and we need to come up with a solution jointly.”
According to Forsythe, the victim works as a mental health therapy aide. At the time of the assault, she was working in a Temporary Living Residence (TLR) at which the individual was also residing.
There are three such facilities on the Kingsboro grounds that are supposed to allow individuals to eventually transition out of the center and into the community. Forsythe noted that TLRs have come under intense scrutiny in the past, however, for not enforcing rules and allowing individuals to come and go as they please.
Details of the incident are under investigation, as this edition went to press. Kingsboro Pyschiatric Center security staff responded to the incident and called the New York Police Department (NYPD). Police arrested the individual.
The victim was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was treated and released.
CSEA is deploying every available resource to the worker, including through the CSEA Employee Benefit Fund’s (EBF) workplace security benefit administered through Pearl Insurance, which covers members who experience certain types of workplace violence.
Forsythe noted that the individual involved in this assault has a history of infractions and has been at the facility for at least 17 years.
“There are complaints about him,” said Forsythe. “This is not his first go-around.”
Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn.
Violent incidents at Kingsboro have increased, said Forsythe, who added that at any one time there are several staff out on workers’ compensation, including one worker who was attacked and now has five stitches on their head and another whose jaw was dislocated.
The Work Force will provide more coverage of the recent Kingsboro assault in an upcoming edition.
Working on solutions
Unfortunately, workplace violence is not isolated to Kingsboro; reports of violent incidents are all too common across New York state. CSEA makes combatting workplace violence a top priority.
There are many ways in which CSEA can and will work with employers to prevent workplace violence, including maintaining proper staffing levels.
“(Short) staffing is definitely an issue,” said Forsythe, as is the need for proper training of staff to not only prevent violence but what to do in these situations.
At Buffalo Psychiatric Center, our union is working with other unions and state Office of Mental Health administrators to improve workplace safety and minimize potential hazards, following an April attack that seriously injured three workers, including a CSEA member.
Together, Buffalo Psychiatric Center workers and center management established improved safety measures that include residential sign-in procedure, installation of additional cameras in units and duress alarms for all residential service units. They continue to work on further measures to minimize potential hazards.
For more information about how your employer can help you stay as safe as possible at work, visit cseany.org/safety.
— David Galarza and Sydney Thomas
