Herzog pledges protection for social workers after Kafr Kama office attack

By RUTH EGLASH
As social workers countrywide held work sanctions Sunday for one hour from noon to one, newly inaugurated Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog vowed to create a working plan to protect social workers from violent clients. Sunday's sanctions by the Union of Social Workers was sparked by an incident last week in Kafr Kama in which a client physically assaulted a social worker. According to reports, the client - a woman whose children had been removed from her custody - arrived at the office demanding they be returned to her care. When the caseworker refused her demands, the woman grabbed the social worker by the hair and smashed her head into the wall, causing her to pass out. "The safety and security of workers is extremely important and it is our responsibility to develop a working program that will prevent future incidents of this kind from taking place," said Herzog, who took over the Welfare and Social Services portfolio last month. Herzog commissioned Nahum Itzkowich, the ministry's director-general, to launch a full investigation into the incident and other cases of violence against social workers.