Personal Support Worker Safety Tips

A few common sense safety tips to make an outreach shift as easy & safe as possible.

Outreach Safety Tips

Better safe then sorry.

It’s our sincere hope that this article does not come across as paranoid. It’s simply meant to be an ounce of prevention and is in no way personalsupportwoker.ca’s view regarding the safety of outreach duty.

Following a few of these tips can keep you safe and save your sanity while working outreach shifts.

Tips:

If possible, always have your cell phone charged and ready. If you don’t have a cell phone try to track down a friend or family members older, non-serviced model. Even the physical presence of a cell phone is enough to mitigate any potential situation.

Upon your first time in a new household, ask for a tour. Make mental notes regarding all entrances and exits.

Attempt to gauge the friendliness of any household animals. If you feel threatened, asked to have the animal(s) caged or kept out of the room(s) you are working in.

Come prepared with your own supplies. Gloves, paper towels, hand sanitizers , any tools that you use to keep hygienic.

Keep the client/psw relationship professional. While you are there to provide companionship, sometimes giving out cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses can lead to akwardness. Judge these situations on a case to case basis.

Make sure that you both understand the ground rules of your service. This keeps your care focussed upon your personal care and PSW duties, not busy tending to a garden (or something similar, unless this has been previous agreed upon by you, your employer and the client).