Threatening situations procedure

A candidate's performance on an exam is often directly tied to the candidate's career aspirations. A candidate may be under pressure to pass or score well on an exam in order to obtain or keep a job. Some candidates may experience anxiety before, during, or after an exam. In rare cases, this may result in confrontational, threatening, or possibly violent speech or behavior if something unplanned occurs, such as:

Technical problems.
Perceived distractions during the exam.
Disagreements over exam delivery procedures.
Poor performance on the exam.

Regardless of the situation, no candidate is ever justified in becoming confrontational or violent while in the test center. Examples of threatening situations include but are not limited to:

Self-harm.
Suicide.
Assault (physical or sexual).
Making threats of violence to themselves or others.
Abuse or neglect of a candidate under the age of 18 as described in the Safeguarding of children procedure and the child is in immediate danger of harm.

In circumstances where there is an immediate threat to the safety of an individual or others (including children), prompt action is critical. Please take the following steps:

Contact onsite or local emergency services immediately.
If you require additional assistance, notify a supervisor immediately. Inform your supervisor that you are dealing with a threatening situation and ask them to call this number: +44 20 3608 4820.

The supervisor must provide the following information to the agent: "There is a Threatening Situation taking place that I need to report immediately." This will enable a member of Pearson VUE’s Threat Assessment team to be notified and to provide additional support.

This phone number may only be used where there is an immediate threat to the safety of an individual or others. This number is for internal use only. Under no circumstances may this number be provided to candidates.

Try to de-escalate the situation as long as it does not place you or anyone else at further risk.
Keep yourself and others as safe as possible while awaiting the arrival of emergency services.
Once the immediate threat is under control, create a case in ServiceDirect (or a client incident portal if applicable).
Click on this link: https://forms.microsoft.com/r/nZwh5aVHY6.

If a case has already been raised, you will need to provide your name, contact number and the case (or incident reference) number. If you have not already raised a ServiceDirect case, please complete the questions to provide details on the incident.