3. HCR-20 Post-workshop reliability training

Early training of staff on the HCR-20 violence risk assessment scheme raised the issue of ease of implementation of risk assessment strategies post-training.

One barrier to successful implementation was staff not feeling confident enough to use these risk assessment instruments in their clinical practice following training.

Practitioners therefore requested a forum where they can practice using the instruments and become confident in their use.

The reliability training achieves three objectives:

 (a) Trainees can practice use of the instruments across a variety of patient types and become familiar and confident in their use;

 (b) Organisations want to know who they can ‘trust’ to provide accurate and reliable risk evaluations. Reliability training results in a known reliability of risk assessment when using the specific instrument for each member of staff.

These are rated under 4 categories (from ‘excellent’ through to ‘not yet good enough for clinical practice’). To date approximately 3% of trainees fall into the ‘not good enough’ category and most of these have completed supplementary training by WARRN to improve their risk assessment skills to a reasonable standard.

 (c) It allows clinicians and researchers to have confidence in their ability to rate this instrument and serves as a mechanism for them to demonstrate this ability.

 The HCR-20 reliability training is currently only offered within a 5 day training package that includes 2 days HCR-20 Basic training, 2 days HCR-20 Reliability training and a 1 day SVR-20 training.

 Further information and discussion of training needs can be sought from

Charlotte Cox
WARRN
PO Box 5207
Cardiff CF5 9BR
phone number  029 20556300, ext 2149 
email: -email-