I hasten to add that I was not significantly injured (a minor bruise to the right side of my jaw).
Including Monday, I have been assaulted four times in the past decade. In addition I have witnessed a number of assaults on colleagues and clients. Unfortunately, this sort of event is a risk of working on the frontline of many community services.
In a situation like this there are two main issues: physical injuries; and the potential for psychological trauma. Neither can be taken lightly. Ten years ago for example, it took me twelve weeks to recover from injuries I sustained in an assault. On that occasion I also had symptoms of PTSD for months after. Over the years I have lost a number of colleagues, in a number of workplaces, due to stress related conditions (PTSD, anxiety disorder, depression) caused by actual violence, threatened violence, or verbal aggression and abuse.
In my experience there are several factors that minimise the impact of such trauma on people: personal resilience; a mutually supportive team environment; debriefing support and counselling as necessary (and for as long as necessary).
The first two are taken care of: I am reasonably resilient and have learnt (and taught) skills to cope with stress; and my team are a great bunch, who all step forward to support each other. As to the debrief (and counselling), well that hasn’t been handled so far. I’ve done my bit in terms of reporting the incident. But the silence from head office is deafening.
This is problematic to say the least. Don’t get me wrong in this instance I’m OK.
BUT and this is a very big but, overall long term outcomes for staff in these high stress workplaces depend on good institutional responses to such problems. I’ve worked for agencies that have excellent procedures and some with truly abysmal ones and the difference in staff outcomes is marked.
I’ve only been with the agency I’m with since earlier in the year and haven’t had to put their system to the test until recently (for Greg and now this incident). I’ll keep you posted.
Now I have had enough of that business.
To lighten the tone I am going to share a fair number of my piccies The only unifying theme will be light and my attempts to catch different scenes under different conditions.
This first photo is of some Silver Gulls wheeling overhead at Port Phillip Bay one sunset.
The movement of birds in the foreground captures the vitality of these gulls. These birds are actually snowy white, the setting sun has dipped them in gold.This picture was taken in broad daylight
but the dappling of the canopy brings out the greys and whites of this big old Snow Gum’s bark.I’m cheating a bit with this piccie as I’ve used it in an earlier post.
It’s of evening light over Lake George in NSW. This time of day can be magic almost anywhere in the world, but I feel there is a subtle quality to the light in Australia that I have yet to see elsewhere.This is one I took last weekend, I didn’t use it in my last post but on looking at it again I find the quality of the light in this pic amazing.
To my eye it almost has the feel of a watercolour.This one is taken looking west over Port Phillip Bay late afternoon in winter.
I have deliberately underexposed this piccie to catch the sun, but it was fairly dim anyway.The bricks of Old Ballarat Gaol
looked warm in the sunset on this cold autumn day at Easter.This normally unprepossessing pylon is tinted orangey red by another sunset.
It is actually painted in a dark dull-grey colour.The next two were taken at Wilsons Promontory in July. The first shows the setting sun, again under exposed.
The second shows a headland and two islands out to sea in the pale watery winter sunset. 
The dead shrubs and the burnt area in the foreground are more evidence of the February Bush Fires.Once again sun warmed bricks in the ruins of Pascoe Vale Uniting Church.
The glare of a high summer sky lights the sandstone and wrought iron gateway of the Sydney Botanical Gardens.
Finally an Aussie icon basks in the sun on Australia Day 2008.
