Risk Management in the Behavioral Health Professions is a comprehensive handbook for mental health and social service providers on prevention of malpractice lawsuits and licensing-board complaints. Frederic G. Reamer draws on his extensive firsthand experience as an expert witness in litigation and licensing-board cases throughout the United States to give readers an insider’s view of practical risk-management strategies. He provides in-depth discussion of common risk areas and steps practitioners can take to protect clients and themselves. Key topics include confidentiality and privileged communication; service delivery, including informed consent, assessment, boundary issues, suicide risk management, and use of technology; impaired practitioners; supervision and consultation; documentation; deception and fraud; and interruption and termination of services. Reamer offers pragmatic advice about how to respond to a lawsuit or licensing-board complaint. He emphasizes the challenges and risks related to remote service provision, especially during public health crises and pandemics. The book includes sample risk-management forms and templates as well as extensive case examples that illustrate fundamental risk-management concepts. Designed for behavioral health professionals including social workers, psychologists, mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, psychiatrists, and substance use disorder treatment counselors, this book is an indispensable resource on how to navigate challenging ethics and risk-management issues.

An essential primer for mental health professionals, written with an emphasis on patient care Straightforward and accessible, Clinical Risk Management: An introductory text for mental health clinicians is an essential resource for anyone working in the mental health field in Australia. The book aims to alleviate anxiety in mental health professionals, including psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, counsellors and mental health care workers, and is written with an emphasis on patient care. Clinical Risk Management spans an extensive range of topics integral to the work of mental health professionals. These topics include an introduction to the concept of risk, an analysis of where risk sits within a mental health setting and an in-depth exploration of the most common mental health risks, including suicide, violence and self-harm. This important medical textbook highlights some more complicated components of clinical risk management; namely psychodynamic principles and boundary issues, managing adverse outcomes and using standardised tools. Existing literature on clinical risk management in the mental health arena is largely limited to journal articles, making Clinical Risk Management: An introductory text for mental health clinicians a necessary and unique health resource. • addresses problems prevalent in psychiatry • looks at the increase in substance abuse in Australian society and the consequences for mental health professionals • offers easy-to-read boxed tips, examples and learning points • is logically structured in four parts, with an overview, clinical skills, types of risk and advanced skills

The psychological dimension of managing risk is of crucial importance, and its study has led to the identification of specific do's and don'ts. Those with an understanding of the psychology underlying risk and the skills to recognize its manifestation in practice, have the opportunity to develop frameworks that embody the do's and don'ts, thereby producing sound judgments and good decisions. Those lacking the understanding and the skills are destined to be more hit and miss in their approach to risk management, doing the don'ts and not doing the do's. Virtually every major risk management catastrophe in the last fifteen years has psychological pitfalls at its root. The list of catastrophes includes the 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and subsequent global financial crisis, the 2010 explosion at BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico and the 2011 nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. A critical lesson from psychological studies for those involved in risk management is that people's judgments and decisions about risk vary with type of circumstance. In Behavioral Risk Management readers will learn that there are specific actions that organizations can undertake to incorporate understanding, recognition, and behavioral interventions into the practice of risk management. There are many examples throughout the book that illustrate doing the don'ts. The chapters in the first part of the book introduce the main ideas, and the chapters in the latter part provide insight into how to apply those ideas to the practical world in which risk managers operate.

This highly practical book explains how to identify and manage suicidal individuals and supports the health professional in assisting the patient to choose life rather than death. Suicide Risk Management: A Manual for Health Professionals provides health professionals with the tools to recognize, assess, and manage the suicidal or potentially suicidal patient and presents important information regarding the epidemiology, risk factors and associated aspects of suicide. The book presents two unique assessment tools – TASR and SRAG – created for use in the authors’ own practice. Refined through actual experience, these proven tools help assess and evaluate patients with confidence. The Tool for Assessment of Suicide Risk (TASR) provides instruction on how to use it appropriately in the clinic, while the Suicide Risk Assessment Guide (SRAG) acts as a self-study program to assess clinical evaluation skills, without running the risk of mishandling a suicidal patient. Throughout Suicide Risk Management: A Manual for Health Professionals, bulleted lists, tables and flowcharts effectively describe how to use the many factors to assess the risk of suicide in an individual patient. A summary card at the back of the book also provides an 'at a glance' guide to the assessment process.

This is the most current edition of the book that has become a standard in the field. The three-volume set covers the enterprise-wide continuum of care and associated risk and has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the current changes in the health care environment. The Risk Management Handbook for Health Care Organizations offers current information, regulatory and legal updates, and assessment tools that will prove invaluable to both new and seasoned risk managers.

"This book describes violence risk assessment in both juveniles and adults, incorporating dynamic and static factors, along with treatment alternativesÖ..Research and practice are combined quite nicely, along with assessment and treatment. There is something for everyone here." Score: 91, 4 stars --Doody's "Forensic clinicians will find this book to be a valuable reference book as well as a very useful clinical treatment guide relevant to violent offenders." --Jeffrey L. Metzner, MD Mental health practitioners are confronted with the difficult task of assessing the risk that offenders pose to the general public. This comprehensive volume provides practitioners with the knowledge and insight necessary to conduct violence risk assessments, and to synthesize clinical and research data into comprehensive reports and oral testimony. Violence risk assessment requires a well-formulated and comprehensive risk management plan. Andrade and the authors present that plan, and demonstrate how it can be clearly implemented in practice. With numerous clinical case studies, this book illustrates the process of conducting violence risk assessments, outlines the tools used in these evaluations, and explains how information is translated into an overall assessment and guide for future risk management. Key Features: Investigates the etiology of violent behavior, and provides a review and analysis of recent literature Discusses both adult and youth violence, providing insight into the developmental course of aggressive behavior throughout the lifespan Contains chapters on special populations, including female offenders, intimate partners, psychopathic and mentally ill offenders, and sexually abusive youth Useful to practitioners from various fields including social work, psychology, and psychiatry, as well as students in these disciplines Ultimately, this book provides practitioners with an understanding of risk assessment, treatment, and risk management, serving as an authoritative guide to applying empirical findings to mental health practice.

Treating Violence deals with the problem of violence by mental health patients. Over the last twenty years violence by the mentally ill has grown from just a peripheral concern to dominate debate about services. Scientific studies have established beyond reasonable doubt that mental disorders lead to violence in a minority of sufferers, whilst a series of homicide inquiries brought the media spotlight to bear on the real and imagined failings of mental health services. Consequently, health services have had violence risk assessment thrust upon them by worried managers and politicians. Clinicians were bewildered by the growing number of risk scales and they felt vulnerable to criticism when things went wrong. This book provides a way out of the confusion. It summarises the evidence, critically reviews risk assessment methods, and presents a strong case for improving management through structured clinical assessment. In this provocative and controversial account, standardised risk assessment is discussed in a critical, non-technical way, with a reminder that nobody can predict the future. There is advice for the clinician on when and how to use standardised assessment, along with a strong defence of clinical methods. Topics include: research on violence, mental health, and risk prediction; the ethics of violence risk assessment; homicide inquiries in the UK, with the results of a new study reviewing their findings; a discussion of professional attitudes towards violence risk; a description of risk assessment tools and recommendations for their use; and a strong defence of structured clinical assessment as the best way of managing risk. This is a book that should be read by anybody working in front line mental health services or criminal justice. It will also be of interest to those who have read the headlines about mental illness and violence and want to know more about the facts and the controversies that lie behind them.