Violence and harassment constitute safety hazards and methods must be developed to both deal with existing incidents and prevent further incidents. The Department of Education and Training has responsibility to ensure the health, safety and welfare of all teachers while at work. The following process aims at documenting violent incidents. The guidelines set out a process aimed at addressing the safety and welfare of staff and students. This includes counselling if requested.
Schools have copies of critical incident report forms.
It has been reported that there is often a reluctance to fill in a critical incident report and the Department's own policy does not make it absolutely clear as to whether each violent incident should be reported in this way. If there is a refusal to fill in a critical incident report - then a Federation meeting should be called and a letter sent to the District Superintendent. This will ensure that the Department cannot claim it is unaware of violent incidents which affect teachers' health, safety and welfare. The register provides sufficient notice in terms of the Act. Injuries may be physical or psychological.