Contexto Histórico

To improve the performance of an organisation this human resource needs to be developed through innovative training.

There are different training programmes available both nationally and internationally but there is always a question about the selection of best practice. Good training should include research-based knowledge concerning the causes and escalating nature of OVAS. Interventions put forward for the participants should have enough evidence to fit proper situation analysis or risk assessment, in other words all interventions be tailored to respond to the problems and needs of specific work place or individuals. Training must ensure evidence that there is commitment of management to the aims and implementation of the interventions mentioned in the session (Milczarek, 2010).

54 OVAS prevention training needs to have contents and practices to disseminate knowledge and to provide confidence to the participants to work in a complex environment (Huang, 2003; Law, 2006). Training needs to create a sense of belonging among employees to their environment and demonstrate the benefit of the new skills to enable them to continue their good work without fear (Vassie, 2001).

Delivery of the training should be flexible to allow equal opportunity to access all staff (permanent or casual, at the main campus or in isolated satellite campus). Hindrance to attending training will put the disadvantaged ones at risk (Papadopoulos, 2010).

Three approaches could be taken to prevent occupational violence: ‘Preventive approach (Reducing exposure to violence), Protective approach (appropriate behaviour of staff when violence occurs), and Treatment approach (diminishing the impact following violence)’ (Mayhew & Chappell, 2001). Depending on the organisation’s management, decision training is needed to adjust its content and practice guidelines accordingly.

Training sessions should be appealing to the participants with inclusion of multi-media, 3D interactive technologies, and to include access for all there should be mobile learning using IT, even cloud computing and cloud environments (Auer, 2015).

Like any other management, this training programme management should also follow either PDCA or PDSA or DMAIC procedures. PDSA (modified from PDCA) meaning Plan, Do, Study and Act (PDSA) is a simple concept of continuous improvement processes. The DMAIC (Define, Measure, Act, Improve and Control) model of quality management is a systematic, and fact-based approach providing a framework of results-oriented project management (Nicolay, 2011; Sokovic, 2010). This will allow training departments to make quality programmes which would be easy to evaluate against their goal and to match against organisational policy.

There are different approaches to including trainers in the programme. The selection of trainers and their skill development programme is important to manage a quality training team. As behaviour management is involved in this OVAS prevention, so inclusion of psychiatric department staff in safety committee would bring benefit (Peek-Asa et al., 2009).

A training method needs to consider the duration of post-training retention of knowledge and skill. The concept of memory retention curve or sleep memory explains that people can retain their memory for a certain time and a refreshing or re-memorising process can improve the retention (Murre & Dros, 2015). Considering that along with the updates of the legislation or industry policy organisation

55 their needs to develop a time frame for main training and refresher training to maintain the knowledge and skill of the participants.

Besides that, frequency of training learning method of the participants should also be considered. It is known that retrieval-based learning supported by group discussions or other methods with

opportunities of reconstructing one’s knowledge helps better learning (Karpicke 2012). Trainers should consider this to provide such facilities to the participants. People differ in their learning pattern, some learn better from words and pictures than words alone (Moulton, 2014). A training session that require individuals to recall information is more effective than those that that do not (Moulton, 2014). This is why training organisers need to develop the content in different formats of presentation.

Participants’ learning also depends on the ease of understanding. Some learn better with enough information on cause and effect relationships (Moulton, 2014). So, every opportunity to demonstrate the cause and effect should be taken to improve the learning, which would then help retaining the knowledge for longer period. Those issues are important to develop training material and selecting a mode of delivery to influence trainees learning.

A good training on OVAS prevention in hospitals needs to assist trainees to understand: risk factors OVAS (clinical and non-clinical), OVAS prevention policies and procedures, the employee rights (Worksafe, 2015b), identifying the signs of escalation and imminent violence, de-escalation techniques (like, preventive measures, effective communication strategies) and post-incident responses and support like counselling (CDC, 2016).

‘Learning’ reflects a heterogeneity of possible changes, from changes in knowledge and behaviour to changes in values and preferences (Moulton, 2014). To understand the level of learning it is needed to measure the changes in knowledge, preferences, values and changes in behaviour. This then requires pre-training and post-training assessment. The results of the two assessments needs analysis to understand the adjustments needed in the training content, mode of delivery or other factors.

Like other WHS issues knowledge on OVAS (a hazard) requires an understanding of its cause and effect, the role of WHSMS in risk minimisation of OVAS incidents, and the actors with their networks to influence the control measures. This knowledge is important to formulate the course curriculum of a training programme and in formulating an evaluation process of the training programme.

56 Human resources need to be upskilled and updated with the inclusion of new regulations and to manage new incidences. Knowledge of addressing recent challenges makes everyone aware of something happening to be alert and about with proper preparedness to handle it to avoid interruption of service. Improvement of the WHS situation requires updating the system with changes in the characteristic of the hazards and risks, current knowledge and legislative updates. In such situations, it is important to adopt new technologies, but this can only be done by updated the training programme.