Seoul rolls out safety guide to better protect frontline care workers

Every day, thousands of home-visit care workers step across unfamiliar thresholds into private residences.

They enter these spaces alone, tasked with delivering essential health care, mobility support and housekeeping to Seoul’s most vulnerable residents.

Yet behind closed doors, their workplace carries invisible hazards — ranging from sudden verbal abuse and physical aggression to sexual harassment, dangerous fall risks and exposure to infectious diseases.

To bridge a long-standing protection gap, the Seoul Welfare Foundation said Friday that it has published and distributed a comprehensive safety and rights protection guidebook tailored specifically for the city's home-visit social service workforce.

For years, frontline caregivers have had to navigate high-stress field emergencies without a standardized, action-oriented playbook.

When faced with aggressive behavior or unsafe sanitary conditions, workers were forced to rely on personal intuition rather than official protocol.

The new manual changes that dynamic by translating abstract safety regulations into clear, step-by-step i ...