The Challenge of Distressed Behaviour in Care
This post is about conflict management | personal safety | dynamis training. Gerard O’Dea, our Director of Training, was recently asked to provide an opinion on how care homes in Scotland can deal with the issues of distressed, difficult, or dangerous behaviours when caring for older people in their services — sometimes known as Safe Holding Training.
In this long-format video, he covers numerous inter-woven safe holding training issues and relates them to existing guidance and statute which should guide practice and management in this area.
What Our Safe Caring Training Delivers
Treat every person they meet with dignity by showing them respect.
On our safe caring training courses, your staff will learn how to apply our strategies for meeting the additional needs of persons who are in emotional distress, while ensuring their own personal safety and the safety of others around them.
In this way, we will help you to have:
- Enhanced confidence and improved staff safety
- Closer compliance with regulations and inspections
- Improved health and safety compliance
- Protection against litigation risks and claims
- Reduced injury rates and absences caused by incidents of violence
- Perhaps most of all, improved outcomes for people who use your service
💡 Key takeaway: Safe holding training isn’t just about managing risk — it’s about creating environments where dignity, safety, and compliance work together. Staff confidence grows, injury rates fall, and outcomes for the people you care for improve.
About Gerard O’Dea and Dynamis
Gerard O’Dea is a conflict management, personal safety, and physical interventions training consultant with significant experience in Safe Holding Training for the care of older people. He is the Training Director for Dynamis, a specialist provider of personal safety and violence management programmes, and the European Adviser for ‘Verbal Defense and Influence’, a global programme which addresses the spectrum of human conflict.
His goal is to enable care providers to create safe and secure environments which are not compatible with violence.
Gerard travels across the UK to deliver safe holding training to care homes for older people. Learn more at www.dynamis.training/safe-holding.
Conflict Management | Personal Safety | Dynamis Training: See Our Training in Action
Watch a video about our Safe Caring approach here, or a video about Safe Holding here.
✅ Next step: Ready to bring safe holding training to your care home? Contact us to discuss how our programmes can help your team manage distressed behaviour with confidence and compassion.
This guide on conflict management | personal safety | dynamis training is part of our ongoing work with schools and academies.
