Spring Cleaning Risk Management

Spring Cleaning and Reflection on Current Practice

As I gear up for the upcoming camp season, I am reviewing much of our camp practice, especially in regards to risk management. I believe the most effective part of the experiential learning cycle is to reflect on past experience and use that “new” knowledge to inform and create new behavior and or practice. There are many factors that affect the learning of our members, and these factors change over time, some become more important, some less, then cycle back to being more important. We owe it to our participants and leaders to take an active approach, to put our 4-H Motto in to organizational practice. —To make the best better--

Recently, we have had changes to our Shooting Sports program because someone reviewed our state laws and found a statute from 1973 that concerns our program but we were unaware of it. The American Red Cross and American Heart Association are changing the practice of CPR because of new information; new recommendations also strongly support greater implementation of AED programs in public locations like airports, sports facilities, and businesses. The guidelines also reinforce the importance of planned and practiced response to cardiac emergencies by lay rescuers. The American Medical Society is recommending that children have a health history and physical within one year instead of two before attending camp. The HIPPA Laws affect our electronic transmission of participant health information. These are just a few of examples of areas of intersection of new knowledge affecting our current camps programs.
I would encourage you to take a moment and review current practice in your area.

Many folks may know of, or heard, the holiday dinner story where the child asks there parent why the are having lamb and why the parent is cutting the end of the leg off the lamb before putting it in the oven. The parent does not know, it is just something that he has always done, so to get the answer the child goes to her great grand parent, and asks “Why do we cut the end of the leg off the lamb?” and the great grand parent does not remember so they both go ask great great grand mom, and she sitting in the other room thinks for a moment and says “Because, the lamb would not fit in the small pan I had.” This generational story can be applied to club practice, leader training, and our collective mental model of why we do something the way we do it.

Taking a moment, like that child in the story, and actively check in with our leaders and find out how and what they are doing this spring. What have they done recently, are they taking on any new projects in there club? Have there been any changes in leaders in the club? Who is the project leader, what experience do they have, have they lead that project in the past? Do they have a first aid Kit available? Are they going to drive the youth to the event, do they have insurance?

Just like that child I think we can learn much and inform our practice on with all of our areas by taking a moment and reviewing our practice to make the best better.

Here is a place to start: http://ceinfo.unh.edu/4H/4HVol/redurisk.pdf