This topic highlights common hazards in the early childhood setting and details how to safely assess the risks and manage and control hazards to reduce the risk of harm to children and others. The details of best practice and risk reduction strategies that educators must apply daily will be outlined.
By the end of this topic, you will understand:
- Strategies for identifying common hazards in an ECEC environment
- Completing a risk assessment to understand and determine risks
- How to apply best practice to risk reduction using the hierarchy of control
- How to review your risk reduction strategies.
This topic will take you through four distinct processes that can help to reduce risk. They are important stages in a planned and compliant risk management approach.
These four steps are:
- Identify the hazards that exist in the workplace
- Assess the level of risk that is attached to each hazard to determine your priorities for action
- Put in place strategies to control the risk
- Review your strategies regularly.
Note: The Difference Between a Hazard and a Risk
These terms are often confused or used interchangeably, but it is important to understand the between a hazard and a risk before approaching risk management.
A hazard is something that has the potential to cause harm or injury. Harm can be physical, such as a cut to a child’s hand, or psychological, such as trauma related to witnessing an accident. A hazard does not have to cause harm to be termed a hazard; it simply has the potential to do so. For example, a sharp edge on a table is a hazard in a children’s education and care service.
A risk is the chance that an injury could occur due to the hazard and what that harm could be. A risk takes into consideration several factors relating to the hazard.
For example, suppose a table has sharp edges so determined to be a hazard, then consideration is needed:
- Where is the table positioned?
- What is the height of the table?
- What is the age of the children using the room?
- How much supervision is provided, and what activities take place there?
- What is the risk of injury? e.g., a cut to a child’s head.
In other words, a hazard can be identified, but a risk is calculated considering factors.
Hazards in a children’s education and care service can be numerous, and you might encounter new hazards daily. It is not possible to completely eradicate hazards. Unless we surround children with bubble wrap, there will always be a chance of harm or injury. However, the focus in children’s services is to find out the hazards and to use possible strategies to minimise them.
The following table outlines some examples of hazards that you might identify during your work.
| Type of Hazard | Examples |
|---|---|
| Electrical and chemical |
|
| Equipment and building |
|
| Kitchen |
|
| Flooring and ground surfaces |
|
| Weather-related |
|
| Behavioural |
|
| Biological |
|
| Vehicles |
|
| Human error |
|
Hazard Identification
There are several ways in which hazards can be identified:
- The first, and often most important, is to be vigilant at all times, looking for potential hazards as you work and scanning the room and the children for issues that could potentially lead to harm. If you have found a hazard, act quickly to remove it (such as cleaning up a spill) or isolate children from it (such as removing a faulty piece of equipment to a storeroom with a label to indicate that it cannot be used). Other hazards cannot be removed or reduced easily, but these should be reported and managed as soon as possible.
- Complete a regular hazard identification checklist. These checklists should be designed for the environment in which they are used. Senior management and/or health and safety representatives complete more detailed checklists regularly.
- Collating and reviewing information and data collected from incident and injury reports, near-miss reports, complaints and suggestions. Reviewing these statistics will highlight hazards that might not otherwise be easily recognisable.
Note
When accidents or injuries happen, there are nearly usually opportunities to act to prevent injury before it occurs. Be alert to hazards around you, and it is more likely that you will catch this window and prevent an incident.
Example
A hazard inspection checklist is often completed daily, such as before children use the outdoor area or before the children arrive at the service in the morning.
A hazard inspection checklist must also be completed before an outing or excursion or when a new venue is used.
Case Study
Several parents at Liliane’s service have complained about other parents parking illegally across the nature strip. One parent sent an email outlining her concerns that this habit is causing a blind spot, where children running from behind these cars are not easily seen.
While not noticed by service staff, this situation has raised some concern about children being injured by a vehicle outside the service. It has been flagged as a hazard and reported as a matter of urgency to senior management.
Practice
Identifying Hazards
Walk around the inside and outside areas of your home or training environment. Note hazards that would need to be managed if small children were to be educated and cared for in this environment.
Pay particular attention to hazards that relate to:
- Furniture
- Electrical cords and power sources
- Kitchen areas
- Outdoor seating areas
- Car parks and road access.
Make sure that you keep notes for your future reference, as this information will support you in your assessment and professional practice.
As you have seen, some hazards can be easily managed and even eradicated by making a small, immediate change. Others, however, require further investigation so that the problem can be managed most effectively.
A risk assessment is a formal process involving standard tools such as a risk matrix or a risk assessment document (or both). It has the aim of:
- Deciding whether the risk is significant enough to take action.
- Considering the priority that the risk should be given.
- Helping to determine how the risk should be managed.
A risk assessment should be tailored to the workplace, and the activity should be undertaken.
Most risk assessments consist of several sections. You will document what you already know about the hazard and the factors that increase or lower the risk. Risk assessments should, wherever possible, be completed in groups rather than by a single person. This is because consultation can help raise understandings about the issue that are more wide-ranging than one person alone.
Example
For example, manual handling risks can be assessed using a manual handling risk assessment. Examples and templates for this type of risk can be found on health and safety websites such as Safe Work Australia or the website of your state or territory authority.
Resource
For children’s safety, ACECQA publishes several risk assessment templates available for free use by services. You will find examples of these risk assessments in later sections of this resource.
Risk Assessment Matrix
A risk matrix is a standard tool used to help you rate the level of risk. It asks you to consider the potential consequences of the hazard or task and weigh these up against the likelihood that this harm or injury could occur. Here is an example of a commonly-used risk matrix. Review a risk matrix developed by the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA)3.
| Likelihood | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rare | Unlikely | Possible | Likely | Almost certain | ||
| Consequences | Major | Moderate | High | High | Critical | Critical |
| Significant | Moderate | Moderate | High | High | Critical | |
| Moderate | Low | Moderate | Moderate | High | High | |
| Minor | Very low | Low | Moderate | Moderate | Moderate | |
| Insignificant | Very low | Very low | Low | Moderate | Moderate | |
Key to the matrix:
Consequence:
| Review the potential severity of an injury: | Choose the rating of: |
|---|---|
| A minor injury of no significance, such as a paper cut | Insignificant |
| A minor injury that may need onsite first aid, such as a sprain or cut | Minor |
| A non-permanent injury or illness that may need medical treatment and/or time off work, such as damage to a ligament. | Moderate |
| A permanent injury or illness that seriously affects the person’s life, such as a slipped disc, contracting hepatitis C or an older worker contracting Covid 19. | Major |
| Able to cause death, such as falling from a height or being struck by an object. | Catastrophic |
Likelihood:
| Review the likelihood of an injury occurring: | Choose: |
|---|---|
| Probably will not occur | Rare |
| Could occur | Unlikely |
| Might occur | Possible |
| Will probably occur | Likely |
| Is expected to occur | Almost certain |
How to use the Matrix
Starting with the far-left column of the matrix, the Likelihood, choose the value that best describes how likely it is that an injury might occur due to the hazard. For example, suppose you are concerned about a child burning themselves from the water in an electric kettle. You might have considered factors already, such as children’s access to the kitchen, the level of supervision, the age of the children and the height of the benchtops. Given the reviewed factors, you might decide that the likelihood of injury from the kettle is Unlikely.
Now using the top row of the table, Consequence, decide where you feel the potential consequences of this injury would most closely fit if it did occur. A burn to a child could be very serious, and you might consider that this particular injury would be classified as Major.
Lining up the two values, Unlikely and Major, across the graph leaves you with a risk level of High in an orange square of the matrix. This level of risk is usually considered unacceptable and indicates that further risk controls must be implemented. The matrix results can help justify expenses and resources involved in these controls. On the other hand, they can also be used to show auditors that you have carefully considered a different risk and found it negligible or not requiring further controls outside of unforeseeable circumstances.
Case Study
Liliane and her colleagues completed a risk assessment of the illegal parking hazards outside the kindergarten. Observing the problem and talking to parents/guardians and other educators, they have concerns that cars illegally parked on the nature strip present as blind spots for other drivers, who may not see the children.
There are controls in place; parents/guardians have been reminded in the weekly newsletter not to park on the nature strip, even for a few minutes, but they continue to do so.
Liliane and her colleagues use her assessment results to rate the risk on a risk matrix. They have rated the likelihood of an incident as Likely, and the consequences, potential death or serious injury, as Major. This gives a risk rating of Extreme.
Liliane and her colleagues take the matrix to their senior manager, alerting her to this risk being a high priority.
Practice
Risk Assessment Matrix
Choose one of the most significant hazards you identified in Learning Activity 3A, in which you identified potential hazards to children in your home or training room.
Rate the hazard using the risk assessment matrix.
- What rating did you give this hazard?
- Would your hazard require further intervention to make the venue safe for a group of children
Make sure that you keep notes for your future reference, as this information will support you in your assessment and professional practice.
Now that you have identified and assessed the hazard, it is time to consider appropriate risk controls. A risk control is a measure put in place to eliminate or reduce a known risk.
Eliminating risks is the best way to do this if possible. If it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate the risk, you and your service must do everything reasonably practicable to reduce the risks as far as possible.
The Hierarchy of Control
The hierarchy of control is a tool used to help you to work through safety problems and develop risk control measures from the highest level of protection (Level 1) down to the lowest (Level 5).
Here are each of the levels of the Hierarchy of Control.
| Level | Examples |
|---|---|
| 1. Elimination |
Removing the risk completely is always the most effective approach, but it is not always possible. Examples include:
|
| 2. Substitution |
This control involves substituting the task for a safer option. Examples include:
|
| 3. Engineering controls |
You might reduce the risk by changing something in the environment. Examples include installing:
|
| 4. Administrative controls |
These can come from training, policies, information or directives. Examples include:
|
| 5. Personal Protective Equipment |
This involves wearing protection to protect workers and children from the hazard or from spreading the hazard to babies and children. Examples include:
|
The hierarchy of control is designed to be used:
- Collaboratively: Work through the tool with others, particularly staff and families of children most affected.
- Creatively: Work through the tool initially without undue concern about cost or practicality, asking for as many ideas as possible for each category. You can later refine each idea in terms of whether it is reasonably practicable or not.
- Systematically: Consider the highest levels of control, and work your way down until you can eliminate or reduce the risk so far as reasonably practicable.
You can use a combination of controls across the hierarchy to provide the highest level of protection, as long as the top-level controls are considered first. Often you will need to use a combination of risk control measures to effectively control the risk.
Case Study
Liliane’s managers asked her to help them to apply the Hierarchy of Control to the problem of parents/guardians parking illegally in front of the centre. Working through each level, they considered the following:
Level 1 (Elimination): It was determined that vehicles will always be around the centre while parents/guardians drop off and pick up children. It is not reasonably practicable to eliminate this risk completely.
Level 2 (Substitution): The working group considered options such as staggering start and finish times so that fewer children are being picked up and dropped off simultaneously. However, this would pose problems with staffing and supervision levels once the children arrive and limit interactions and opportunities for play.
Level 3 (Engineering): The group considered talking to the council to replace all-day parking zones around the centre with short-term half-hour parking spots so that parks were rotated more frequently. This might include permit parking being available for residents, but it could reduce the number of office workers from the surrounding area parking at the centre.
Level 4 (Administration): The group felt that the safety of the children warranted a regular call to the local council parking officers whenever a family member was seen breaching the parking restrictions. This could be backed up with an email and hard copy memo to all parents/guardians that parking fines would be increased if rules were seen to be broken.
Level 5 (PPE): This control level was deemed irrelevant to this problem.
Using the hierarchy, the staff have developed an effective group of controls, which they will now implement:
- Council will be lobbied to create better traffic management and parking controls around the centre
- Parents will be given warnings that a blitz on parking will take place
- Council parking officers will be contacted as soon as a parking breach is noted so that a fine can be issued.
Practice
Using the Hierarchy of Control
Return to the hazard that you assessed using the matrix in Activity 3B.
Apply the hazard to the hierarchy of control, and brainstorm examples of controls for each section of the hierarchy (wherever possible). Remember that you may not be able to apply controls in each level and that you may have controls in more than one level.
During your initial brainstorming, be creative with solutions without being too concerned about limitations like cost. Once you have a list of options, narrow down your controls to the most appropriate and realistic examples.
Make sure that you keep notes for your future reference, as this information will support you in your assessment and professional practice.
