Dec 4, 2017, (Canada) CBC: Bitten and bruised: Former educational assistant says health risks caused her to quit http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/educational-assistant-stress-1.4429413 Working with students with complex needs can come with intense mental and physical strain A former educational assistant in the provincial school system says her job supporting students with complex needs became so stressful and injury-prone, she felt forced to quit when she developed a life-threatening blood pressure condition. … Fowler started as a teacher's assistant in 1999 and described her duties as mainly working with students on the autism spectrum. … She said she was bitten and bruised repeatedly by students who exhibited increasingly unmanageable behavioural problems. "There can be anything from unbelievable language to violence. Violence towards others or themselves. Not only throwing things but also biting or pinching or head-butting. You name it, they can do it." …. Theresa McAllister, the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees local 2745, says they get at least 500 in a school year. "Those could be verbal or physical incidents," she said. … Teacher's Association: 8-10 incidents per week … George Daley, president of the New Brunswick Teachers Association, says the association gets eight to 10 reports of violent incidents weekly from members. (CBC News)… "We've noticed somewhere in the area of a 30 per cent increase in contact with our professional counselling services." He's also concerned about violence in the workplace, both for teachers and support staff. "We're still seeing eight to 10 submissions a week of violent incidents reported to us, within the province," Daley told CBC News in a recent interview. … The Anglophone West School District says it compiles its numbers using CUPE 2745 violent incident reports, WorkSafeNB forms, the Student Violent Threat Risk Assessment database and PowerSchool; a web-based student information system. …
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