Assess & Improve The Safety Of Environments

Introduction
In this section, we will look at:
relevant legislation and your obligations as a worker

what makes a suitable and safe environment, and

assessing, improving and reviewing identified risk areas. On completion of this section, you should be able to compile and complete a checklist, assess any risks, determine necessary improvements and evaluate the effectiveness of your improvements.

Legislation
Every State or Territory will have legislation about Workplace Health and Safety or Occupational Health and Safety. States and Territories also have Childrens Services Legislation that covers how we must act in regards to Workplace Health and Safety in Childrens Services.

Who Is Responsible?
You have seen from the above exercise that there is Legislation in place to guide Workplace, Health and Safety within childrens services. Legislation will impose penalties on employers who breach the legislative requirements within the workplace and place employees and clients at risk.
Workplace, Health and Safety Legislation nominates that ALL people in the workplace have responsibilities to ensure the safety of the workplace.

This means that employers, contractors, people in control of a workplace, designers and manufacturers, employees, visitors and volunteers all have a responsibility to be alert and observant within the workplace, report any risk areas, correct or remove any dangerous situations and ensure the safety of everyone in the workplace.

As an employee:

you must follow the instructions and processes within your workplace
use any personal protective equipment provided for you in the workplace you must act in a way that protects from risk your own and others health and safety attend training as directed by your employer to ensure your understanding of the workplace health and safety guidelines within your workplace, and report any dangerous situations straight away to your supervisor/manager.

What Is A Safe Environment?

A safe environment is one where the health, safety and hygiene practices are valued, assessed, written, taught and improved in a continuous cycle that shows a commitment to providing a quality environment for the employer, employees, visitors and children who attend the service. The environment is observed and assessed, staff are alert and scan each day, hazards are removed/repaired and all participants at the service work together to ensure safe practices.

Assessing The Environment

How can we do this?
Organise a Workplace Health and Safety Committee for your workplace. This could be made up of parents and staff. Hold regular meetings and write Minutes for each meeting. You need to assess the environment and identify the hazards and risks that could cause injury or illness to children, employees and visitors.

 Evaluate the effectiveness of current Safety Policies.

Review and update current Safety Policies, as needed. Identify the areas that may pose a risk within the service.

Compile Safety Checklists.

Decide how to assess the risk.

Team Input
The old saying that many hands make light work also applies to solving problems of risk the more brains the more varied and innovative the solutions!

 set the schedule for Safety Checklists to ensure all areas of the service are checked regularly

review the completed Checklists and assist with Risk Assessments The Workplace Health and Safety Committee is one avenue to involve parents and staff in consultation and continuous improvement. This committee can: brainstorm innovative solutions to control potential risks
update the services Policies and Procedures on an annual schedule, as required.

Compiling A Safety Checklist

A comprehensive Safety Checklist will help you to focus on the areas within the services environment that could cause a problem or risk.
To make the assessment more comprehensive, you will also need to scan the environment and be alert for items that are not on the checklist.

Scanning involves really looking at all aspects of the environment, both indoor and outdoor, up and down, left and right, in cupboards, opening doors, and breaking down large areas into smaller ones.

Look at a wall and divide it into four parts and look at each part closely, so that you see any fixtures, power points, electrical cords, holes, paintwork and truly evaluate the condition of each piece.

Activity
Draw up a list of safety statements under each of the headings given on the safety checklist on the next slide. Remember to write the statements in a positive way, so that yes means compliance, eg. All windows operate smoothly with latches in good working order; all furniture is stable, tilt-proof and in good repair. After developing your checklist, use it to undertake an assessment of one childrens room at your service.

SAFETY CHECKLIST: Check each area within the room and note yes for compliance; no for non -compliance and N/A for not applicable. ROOM: DATE:

Item
Doors, Windows and Lighting:

Yes

No

N/A

Action Required / Comment

Walls:

Flooring:

Curtains and Blinds:

Furniture and Fittings:

Equipment:

Electrical Fittings and Equipment:

Bathrooms and wet areas:

Any other items:

Risk Assessment
In every situation, there can be a multitude of items that could cause injury and harm. Look around your home. Where do you store your medications and cleaning products? Are sharp knives accessible to children? Do you use extension cords? Are there trip hazards such as a cord, rubbish, hose?

Risk Assessment is a process involving the following procedures:

identify possible hazards (through checklists and scanning
lighting flooring falling objects lifting temperature noise misuse of equipment chemicals or poisonous materials sharp objects

assess the likelihood of risk is it likely to happen? What could the result be? (minor injury, major injury, fatality) How often are we exposed to the risk? (daily, annually) decide how to control, minimise or eliminate the risk

implement the measures decided (action plan)

monitor and evaluate the result and effectiveness of the measures taken (remember that, sometimes, we can create other hazards while trying to minimise the original hazard).

Hazard Groups
There are six general groups of hazards:
1. Physical Noise, vibration, poor lightening, electrical, heat & cold, dust, fire, explosion, unguarded machinery, overcrowding & slippery floors Gases, dusts, fumes, vapours & liquids Tool design, equipment design & task design, work station design & manual handling

2. Chemical 3. Ergonomic (postural)

4. Radiation

Microwaves, infra-red, ultraviolet, lasers & X-rays

5. Psychological

Shift work, workload, dealing with the public, harassment, discrimination, threat of danger, stress etc. Infections by bacteria, viruses, fungi & parasites.

6. Biological

Example: The service has identified a potential risk after completing the Safety Checklist and scanning the centre as the checklist was completed. Staff found that the carpet square in the room had a frayed corner that children/staff/visitors could catch their foot on. This is a potential hazard. To assess the likelihood of risk the following table was used on the next slide.

Is it likely to happen?

What could the result be?

How often are we exposed to the risk?

Highly unlikely

Minor Injury

Infrequent

Not likely Likely Extremely likely X

Moderate Injury Major Injury Fatality

Occasional Frequent Constant X

Crosses on the first line represent minor risk, line two moderate risk, line three high risk and crosses on the bottom line indicate very high risk. Our assessment shows an average score of HIGH RISK and means we need to do something about the potential risk, very quickly.

Action Plans & Timeframes

The next step in the Risk Assessment process is to review the options for controlling the potential risk, and set the actions and timeframes needed. In order of priority, the methods of controlling risk are: Elimination of the hazard Substitution of the hazard by a lesser hazard Isolation of the hazard Redesigning to overcome the hazard Administrative process to minimise the hazard Use of PPE personal protective equipment

Using the example of the frayed carpet square, you could use the following methods to control the hazard: Elimination remove the carpet square from use and have the edges repaired Substitution we may have another carpet that can be used

Redesigning the carpet square may be able to be turned around, so that the frayed edge is under a shelf unit and no longer a hazard.

Evaluation
The last step in the Risk Assessment Process is to evaluate the effectiveness of the control measure that has been implemented.
All steps in the process must be documented and dated. In our example about the frayed carpet square, if we used elimination, and removed the frayed carpet and replaced it with a new square or had the edge repaired, we have solved the risk in that instance. The action and the result need to be documented and signed off by the Workplace Health and Safety Committee.

A review three months later can be undertaken to ensure that the risk remains controlled.

Summary
As you have worked through this section, you have seen that each state has different legislation for:
Workplace health and safety (or occupational health and safety), Regulating your service type (long day care, family day care, outside school hours care). However, there are many aspects of this legislation which are common to all States and Territories. Every service or family day care scheme should have written policies and procedures for all health and safety issues that might occur. These must be evaluated annually, with input from clients, peers and community.

The process for ensuring safe environments is to: check the environment regularly, using scanning and checklists document potential hazards and rate their seriousness look at effective ways to rectify the problem through elimination, substitution, isolation, redesign, administration or personal protective equipment (PPE).

Everyone is responsible for health and safety issues workers, managers, owners, visitors, volunteers and clients. If you see something that is a possible risk, you have an obligation to report that risk. This includes dangerous situations in the community as a whole, as well as within your home and workplace. This should become a way of living.