Caregivers play an irreplaceable role in assisting individuals with their daily needs. And for those who require constant and responsive attention, a caregiver who is distracted can significantly endanger their health and safety, whether it's intentional or the result of exhaustion.
Every year, the Justice Center’s 24-hour abuse and neglect hotline receives reports of incidents rooted in staff inattention or poor judgment. This often results from workplace fatigue, sleep deprivation, or willfully sleeping during a shift.
This inattention jeopardizes the safety and well-being of an individual receiving services and could result in:
- An individual’s personal care and health needs not being met
- Failure to prevent or de-escalate an individual’s high-risk behaviors, such as choking or elopement
- Inability to respond to an individual’s acute medical needs
- Failure to respond to an emergency, such as a fire
What Agencies and Providers Can Do
As an agency or provider, you have a direct responsibility to protect both your staff and the individuals you serve from caregiver fatigue.
What steps can you take?
- Monitor staff assignments, overtime, and staff fatigue. Implement policies that limit the amount of overtime staff are permitted to work. Ensure staff assignments are manageable and monitor employees for fatigue and burnout.
- Provide support to staff through an Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Employees may need support to address personal or work-related concerns that are negatively impacting their performance and contributing to caregiver fatigue.
- Detect and deter willful acts of sleeping on the job. Implement and regularly review the effectiveness of policies designed to prevent and detect unauthorized willful sleeping on the job.
- Establish emergency contingency plans to address the occasional need to relieve staff found to be unfit for duty.
- Identify and plan for addressing the risk of staff accidentally falling asleep. Establish procedures that direct staff to develop Personal Action Plans with their supervisors, especially for staff working non-traditional shifts or who work alone.
- Teach and support people receiving services to respond to emergencies and other unsafe conditions. Implement policies directing treatment teams or other circles of support to assist each person receiving services in developing Personal Safety Plans, which include instructions on how to call for help if a caregiver is unresponsive to immediate needs.
- Consider using a “buddy” or mentor system to provide staff with peer support. Implement a system that allows co-workers to monitor one another for signs of fatigue.
- Use creative strategies. Consider identifying administrative staff who may be willing to assist with non-direct care responsibilities, such as grocery shopping or cleaning, to give breaks to front-line staff.
For additional resources, including fact sheets for staff, provider agencies, individuals, and families, access the full Spotlight on Prevention Toolkit: Protecting People with Special Needs from the Dangers of Caregiver Fatigue.
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