Preventing and Managing Challenging Behaviour: Staff Training

Violence is a serious issue in mental health care, where the safety of both patients and staff needs to be protected. Organisations should take care to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of not only their staff but also of the patients in their care. The chapter provides the issues related to training and training of trainers in the recognition, prevention, post-incident care, and therapeutic management of aggressive, violent behaviour, and sexual harassment in healthcare settings. The chapter also contains recommendations for training evaluation and training effectiveness. The process of training staff must be complex, and it is necessary to check if the training is ethically and legally accurate and appropriate. The training analysis is a prerequisite before (an external) training (provider) can and may start. In this process, the gap between the actual and desired knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the staff is identified. The last step is to assess and determine the training options and to answer whether the chosen training is fit for the intended purpose.