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Background Workplace violence is an increasingly significant topic, particularly for staff working in mental health settings. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Canada’s largest mental health hospital, considers workplace safety a high priority and consequently has mandated staff safety training. For clinical staff, key components of this training are self-protection and team-control skills, which are a last resort when an individual is at an imminent risk of harm to self or others and other interventions are ineffective (eg, verbal de-escalation). For the past 20 years, CAMH’s training-as-usual (TAU) has been based on a 3D approach (description, demonstration, and doing), but without any competency-based assessment. Recent staff reports indicate that the acquisition and retention of these skills may be problematic and that staff are not always confident in their ability to effectively address workplace violence. The current literature lacks studies that evaluate how staff are trained to acquire these physical skills and consequently provides no recommendations or best practice guidelines. To address these gaps described by the staff and in the literature, we have used an evidence-based approach from the field of applied behavior analysis known as behavioral skills training (BST), which requires trainees to actively execute targeted skills through instruction, modeling, practice, and feedback loop. As part of this method, competency checklists of skills are used with direct observation to determine successful mastery. Objective Our objectives are to evaluate the effectiveness of BST versus TAU in terms of staff confidence; their competence in self-protection and team-control physical skills; their level of mastery (predefined as 80% competence) in these skills; and their confidence, competency, and mastery at 1 month posttraining. Methods We are using a pragmatic randomized controlled trial design. New staff registering for their mandatory safety training are randomly assigned to sessions which are, in turn, randomly assigned to either the BST or TAU conditions. Attendees are informed and consented into the study at the beginning of training. Differences between those consenting and those not consenting in terms of role and department are tracked to flag potential biases. Results This study was internally funded and commenced in January 2021 after receiving ethics approval. As of May 2022, data collection is complete; half of the baseline, posttraining, and 1-month videotapes have been rated, and three-fourths of the interrater reliability checks have been completed. The analysis is expected to begin in late summer 2022 with results submitted for publication by fall 2022. Conclusions The findings from this study are expected to contribute to both the medical education literature as well as to the field of applied behavioral analysis where randomized controlled trial designs are rare. More practically, the results are also expected to inform the continuing development of our institutional staff safety training program. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/39672

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With limited opportunities for peer-to-peer interaction and formal training outside of conferences or fee-for-service workshops, some behaviour analysts may find it challenging to acquire and maintain important clinical and professional competencies. Time constraints, heavy caseloads, deficient professional networks, and limited organizational resources may lead some clinicians to conduct outdated, unsupported, or contextually inappropriate assessment and treatment procedures. Although the effectiveness of behavioural skills training for teaching specific skills to behaviour analysts is well established in the literature, it can be time consuming and may not be feasible to develop every skill that practitioners need to stay competent in their areas of practice. In contrast, communities of practice are flexible peer-based groups that facilitate learning through repeated engagement in joint activities. We first evaluated self-reports of participant satisfaction and then evaluated pre-and posttest scores on 3 practice topics to determine the utility of the community of practice meetings. Results showed that behaviour analysts responded favorably to membership and that participation in the sampled community of practice meetings led to improvements in all targeted skills. This article explores the concept of community of practice and its potential utility for behaviour analysts. Public Significance StatementIt has been suggested that practicing behaviour analysts may find it difficult to set aside time from their busy schedules to learn and/or maintain important professional skills. In this study, we found that a community of practice meeting (i.e., a peer-based group that facilitates learning on practicebased topics) produced an increase in three important skills for practicing behaviour analysts.