Vancouver Island University is committed to preventing, managing, and responding appropriately to incidents of violence, threatening behaviour, harassment, or intimidation to provide a safe, secure, and productive learning and working environment for all members of the campus community. VIU has developed a Violence Prevention Program, which describes the requirements and procedures established by VIU for the prevention, management and investigation of violence in the workplace. Departments and Faculties should conduct a risk assessment to determine the level of risk present in their work area and then develop strategies to eliminate or mitigate the identified risks.
At VIU a workplace means a location that is owned or operated by the university where workers of the university carry out their work. This includes but is not limited to: university offices, shops, classrooms, exterior spaces, and facilities - of all types.
The BC Occupational Health and Safety Regulation defines violence as “the attempted or actual exercise by a person, other than a worker, of any physical force so as to cause injury to a worker, and includes any threatening statement or behaviour which gives a worker reasonable cause to believe that he or she is at risk of injury”. )An injury can be either a physical injury or a mental injury).
Note that acts of violence or threats by a worker towards another worker are covered under Workplace Conduct provisions of the OHSR (4.25).
a)Type I violence means Criminal activity where there is no legitimate relationship to the university or our employees (member of the public is unknown).
b) Type II violence means Customer/Client. This includes our students, parents and family members, or contractor/visitors. At VIU, the following three (3) sub-categories of Type II violence are suggested:
i) Type IIa violence – Parents/Guardians/Family member’s actions towards employees
ii) Type IIb violence – Students dysregulation towards employees
iii) Type IIc violence – Contractors/visitors actions towards employees
c) Type III violence means violence carried out by a worker towards (an)other worker(s).
Inappropriate Worker to Worker behaviour is covered under OHSR (4.25).
d) Type IV violence means violence originating from a personal relationship where the perpetrator has a personal relationship with the intended victim, and there is no association with the workplace, this includes domestic violence.
All incidents of potential or actual violence in the workplace must be reported to VIU using the Safety Incident Reporting System.
All reported incidents will be taken seriously and an investigation by VIU will occur.