I feel that another commenter ‘Paul’ summed up nicely what I would also have said. There is a fine line between accepting that aggression is part of the job, and having an understanding that the nature of some of the work is going to cause people distress, and thus increasing the chances of them displaying aggression. A lot of the time this behaviour is not punished in a court of law, but it serves their case very poorly and can sometimes lead to them being punished in other ways, for example aggression from a parent could be the deciding factor as to whether a child is returned to their parents care. Much like many other policies within Social Work, lengthy unworkable policies implemented nationwide do not take into consideration local risks, team sizes, area etc. Although it is important to set an expectation nationally of what should be in place, it would better serve the safety of the staff on the front line for the responsibility for safety policies and risk assessments to fall on the employer, or at the very least the Local Authority. I would also recommend that this becomes part of the Ofsted inspection. I find it odd that Local Authorities are regularly, and thoroughly inspected, to ensure their risk assessments for their service users are appropriate and effective, but their concern for the risk assessments for the staff who undertake this work falls by the wayside. 
Alice Wiggans

As in A & E, there should be a zero-tolerance policy on violence towards staff and prosecutions sought. With there being less of a culture of it being ‘understandable’ as they’ve received bad news.

There seems to be a failure of risk assessing but maybe this isn’t so much a failure of the individual but more of a need for better multi agency working. I.e. being able to shout up police more readily or a PNC then PCSO if recent markers on the property or individual.

Even though the social worker is capable of working as an autonomous individual in the decision making and execution of their decisions, there shouldn’t be a risk to their wellbeing when they’re trying to promote the well-being of others.