Helping California employers implement an effective workplace violence prevention program based upon your employees' specific safety needs, as required under California's new workplace violence prevention law.
California employers must now implement an effective workplace violence prevention program. Click on the buttons above or below to get started.
- Free CA workplace violence prevention checklist to help you identify what needs to get done.
- CA Employers Workplace Violence Prevention Tool Kit to help you create and implement your prevention plan.
- And scroll below for helpful weekly blog posts and videos on workplace violence prevention.
Creating an effective plan is just the first step. You'll need to implement your plan by correcting safety hazards, introducing process improvements, and providing multiple types of trainings, including on strategies to avoid physical harm from violence, to your employees. Click on the email button below and we can discuss approaches to ensure that your violence prevention program is effective.
California's new workplace violence prevention law covers employees, employers, and workplaces.
Employers now must:
- Establish, implement, and maintain an effective workplace violence prevention plan and program.
- Have active employee participation in identifying and remediating workplace violence safety hazards, and in determining the types of training they feel will help them avoid physical harm.
- Train employees on recognizing workplace violence safety hazards.
- Train employees in strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence. Click on the training button above to learn about strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence.
- Assess risks to your employees from the 4 different types of workplace violence.
- Implement an effective workplace violence complaint and investigation process.
- Implement processes to respond to actual or potential workplace violence emergencies.
Workplace violence prevention must be done right to be effective. It must be focused on your employees' actual safety needs. Want help getting it right?
My CA Employers Workplace Violence Prevention Tool Kit is your affordable, step-by-step guide to creating an effective workplace violence prevention plan. Click on the button above to learn more.
Getting your violence prevention program right requires conducting assessments to ID your employees' safety hazards, implementing processes to correct those identified hazards, and providing training to employees in recognizing and avoiding workplace violence, and in safety strategies to help them avoid physical harm from violence. Click on the button below to send me an email.
Email Me to Discuss Your WPV Prevention NeedsBlog Posts & Videos
Weekly helpful workplace violence prevention tips, techniques, and information.
My commitment to preventing workplace violence comes from 30 years of conducting investigations into violent incidents. Through these experiences I learned how workplace violence happens, and how to prevent it.
Effective workplace violence prevention training requires a comprehensive and integrated approach.
That's why the offices of a United States Senator, court administrators and personnel, judges, small business owners, educators, reporters, law firms, a large city's community safety department, nonprofit organizations, and others have turned to Mike Corwin to provide workplace violence prevention consulting and training.
In 1988, I moved across the country to Los Angeles, CA. Before then, I had spent several years building and remodeling homes and commercial buildings.
After moving. I left the building business and began working as a litigation investigator. Developing facts for civil plaintiff and criminal defense attorneys.
30 YEARS OF LEARNING ABOUT VIOLENCE, ITS CAUSES AND PREVENTION
In conducting these investigations, I regularly got a close up view of man's inhumanity to man. Literally, the worst that people can do to each other. And that wasn't just the criminal cases.
I helped build many civil cases against organizations when employees, customers, patients, and clients were injured by violence at their location including homicides, assaults, sexual assaults, and other significant acts of violence.
My investigations uncovered what employers did wrong that led to the violence. And taught me how employers can prevent workplace violence.
I examined hiring practices and found people hired despite abusive and violent behavior.
I also assessed safety hazards caused by the interior and exterior physical layout, lighting, obstructions, ingress, egress, and parking areas.
In the 30 plus years that I conducted investigations for attorneys, I had the opportunity to help thousands of people going through difficult situations, and worked along side of some top attorneys.
Helping people is simply a part of who I am.
TO BE EFFECTIVE I HAD TO KEEP SAFE FROM VIOLENCE WHILE WORKING IN DANGEROUS ENVIRONMENTS
A significant part of my work involved conducting witness interviews (I've done approximately 12,000 of them). And often that meant showing up at a total stranger's door, which I did 1000s of times over the years, and then convincing them to speak with me about something difficult, and often tragic, that this person witnessed.
I worked in some of the roughest areas in Los Angeles, and later in New Mexico. and that meant learning how to keep myself safe so that I could develop the information I needed in order to be able to help people.
Implementing situational awareness saved me when a homeless man confronted me with a shank.
Because I saw the shank reflect light, I knew BEFORE the threat was upon me, that I had to act quickly in order to be safe.
I learned to de-escalate tense situations while serving court papers like restraining orders, witness subpoenas, and even lawsuits.
In 1996, I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and opened an investigation practice there.
I continued to focus on civil plaintiff investigations including many involving premises liability, and workplace violence.
INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS FOR EMPLOYERS
I spent several years conducting contract internal 3rd party fact-finding investigations for the City of Albuquerque regarding abusive behavior including workplace violence.
And several years conducting internal fact-finding investigations regarding allegations of misconduct by judges for the New Mexico Judicial Standards Commission.
As a result of my investigation knowledge I was often asked by attorneys to evaluate investigations conducted by employers to assess whether those investigations were conducted adequately and sufficiently to address the alleged conduct in question.
PRE-EMPLOYMENT BACKGROUND INVESTIGATIONS LOOKING FOR A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE AND ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR
I also did the pre-employment background checks for a smaller town to help ensure that those hired would not become a threat to co-workers, and the town's citizens.
Teaching How to Conduct Effective Internal Investigations
Soon after moving to Albuquerque in the mid-1990s, I began conducting investigation trainings for attorneys, legal assistants, paralegals.
I was approved by the New Mexico Supreme Court as an instructor in investigations for attorneys, paralegals, and legal assistants.
And by the New Mexico Regulations and Licensing Board as an instructor for licensed investigators.
I regularly served as a guest instructor at UNM Law School's Clinical Law Program, it's Innocence and Justice Project, and it's Clemency and Pardon Project as well as civil and criminal law classes.
In addition, because of my investigation expertise, I've been featured on Dateline NBC, Politico Magazine, and Professional Investigator Magazine.
Training Employees in Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm from Workplace Violence
In addition to the violence prevention skills I learned while working as an investigator, I also trained in and taught a variety of martial arts, having achieved the rank of 3rd degree blackbelt in multiple disciplines.
After all, there are times when you have no choice but to defend yourself in order to avoid physical harm from violence.
BUT, in working with my students, I realized SELF-DEFENSE and MARTIAL ARTS were NOT one and the same.
One day, I came across an old training manual that the Allied forces used during WWII to train the women and men sent behind enemy lines to work with the local resistance. In there, I found exactly the type of self-defense I was looking for.
It was quick to learn, and easy to apply by pretty much anyone regardless of size or strength.
After ensuring the effectiveness of this self-defense approach by training my own students in it, I added this self-defense training to my workplace violence prevention training to give employees the skills to avoid physical harm if they were physically attacked on the job
By combining everything that I learned and taught through investigation work, with my knowledge of the physical environment to identify and remediate safety hazards, and combined them with training in communication approaches, situational awareness, de-escalation, and self-defense skills, I've provided effective workplace violence prevention consulting and training services to employers for over 10 years.
Michael Corwin, HelpYou Be Safe, LLC
38180 Del Webb Blvd. #245, Palm Desert, CA 92211
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