Most employers do not have a comprehensive domestic violence program. Many notionally refer to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in their mandatory workplace violence policies, but they don’t know what to do if an employee actually reports IPV.
In the first webinar titled “Domestic Violence in the Workplace: Legal Responsibilities Every Employer Should Know,” we reviewed employers’ legal duties with respect to IPV and where those duties fit within an IPV program. But employers who are still working on creating that program need to know how to respond and support survivors in the meantime.
This second webinar will walk through a practical triage sequence: the first conversation and how to be clear about the limits of confidentiality; an initial workplace risk assessment; referrals to community supports; building a safety plan with the employee (for that employee and other workers); and what to do if the employee does not want to participate at all.
Attendance in the first webinar is helpful but not mandatory. this second webinar will begin with a brief recap of relevant legal duties. In case if you have missed, watch it in our Ondemand
Learning Objectives
• Conduct a first-response conversation after a disclosure of domestic violence, including how to be transparent about the limits of confidentiality before information is shared
• Complete an initial workplace risk assessment and recognize when specialist risk assessment is warranted
• Connect an employee with community supports (and what those supports can offer)
• Develop a workplace safety plan with the employee
• Recognize some unique components of an IPV safety plan, such as deciding which individuals should know about the risk, technological abuse response, and financial abuse response
• Determine what the employer should do when the employee refuses to participate
• Identify how a pre-existing IPV program could assist the employer in the future
Who should attend this program?
HR professionals at all levels who hold responsibility for health and safety, employee/labour relations, training, leave administration, or workplace investigations. The session is designed to be immediately practical for HR generalists and managers while offering depth for senior HR leaders responsible for policy and compliance.
Speaker
Rika Sawatsky
Rika Sawatsky is an employment lawyer and the founder of Clausework, a Toronto-based practice focused on helping employers tackle gender-based harm at work, with particular depth in workplace domestic violence, sexual harassment, and intersectional discrimination. She is also certified by the International Labour Organization as a participatory gender audit facilitator.
Rika regularly provides training on the intersection of domestic violence and employment law, and her national webinar on designing trauma- and violence-informed workplace responses to intimate partner violence, delivered through Western University’s Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children (CREVAWC) drew a record audience for the Learning Network series, including international attendees. Rika will also be teaching a course on this subject in CREVAWC’s GBV Practice Skills Certificate Program this coming winter term.
Rika has been interviewed by Canadian HR Reporter on harassment in male-dominated workplaces, appeared as the inaugural guest on the Ontario Women's Justice Network's podcast (METRAC), and is the author of the Workplace Domestic Violence Readiness Package, a free self-assessment toolkit for employers.
Before founding Clausework, Rika practised at Norton Rose Fulbright and served as counsel to Ontario's Ministry of Labour.