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HEALTH AND SAFETY
Magic Bus has been conducting activities with children for 10 years now without any major accidents. This makes us confident that we already possess the right safety orientation at Magic Bus. In the next stage of our ongoing development we want to represent our safety attitude in a policy format and use a process called 'Risk Assessments'. The purpose of this initiative is to make our present practises transparent and safer. A need we all recognise, as we move continue to use adventure activities and outward bound experiences to facilitate experiential learning for children and adults. It will also help us assess and manage the desired risks we actually seek. We do this to create memorable development opportunities for all participants and staff.

At Magic Bus we are aware of our responsibility of a 'duty of care' towards all participants in our programmes and our staff. We see this responsibility, as the need to act has a Parentus Locus (Good parent) for all those visiting, working, or undergoing training at the centre. As 'Good Parents' we want to eliminate the risks at the centre whilst not over protecting participants so much that they fail to develop the skills and abilities to move forward in a world full of risks.

So as far as is reasonably practicable, here at Magic Bus we all share this responsibility. We all have the desire to allow people to grow in an environment where all risks and benefits are assessed. To encourage this culture of safe risk taking we are committing ourselves to:

• Promote a culture which balances the responsibility of a 'Duty of Care' with a belief that 'Desired and Managed Risks' have merit for those who visit, play and work at the centre.

• Empower individuals – especially those with sufficient training and experience to construct and operate an ongoing training and risk assessments process. We want this process to be easily understood and allow people to contribute to it. This even extends to our youngest participants, who we will ask to take responsibility for their actions, and on some occasions ask to safeguard
others.

• Invite external inspections and feedback to further develop our processes.

• Conduct internal healthchecks to not only see how we are complying to our committed responsibilities, but to also review existing processes and their use in a constantly changing environment.

• Publish reports to create an awareness across the organisation on how we are managing risks.

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ADULT DEVELOPMENT
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SOCIAL INTERVENTIONS
TEAM
Since its inception and as part of its culture, Magic Bus Centre for Learning & Development has focused on creating a high calibre, result driven team. We have been able to attract high performance individuals from both the corporate and social sectors in order to create a balance of the required skills necessary to take the organisation forward...

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PARTNERS

  • WHAT ARE RISK ASSESSMENTS?

  • Taking into consideration best practices elsewhere in the world, we have looked at and recorded the significant hazards which could pose a risk of injury to participants in Magic Bus programmes. We then reviewed our existing control measures for appropriateness and checked what   we need to do to minimise risk to an acceptable level. Control measures consist of; inspections, briefings, providing various level of supervision, placement of notices, reporting, creation of instructions and training initiatives, regular checks of equipment and inviting an external scrutiny of our processes and structures. All measures which give us the confidence to proceed with any activity that involves risk.

    To us, an acceptable risk from the perspective of activities; is something that retains a sense of adventure, learning and play for the participant, whilst preventing the chance of any mishap. We are also confident that we can manage high risk activities, as long as the people involved have the  supervision capabilities to operate at this level and the relevant safety standards of all equipment are met.

    Certain areas, facilities and zones will have risk levels assigned to them & will have access protocols defined.

    Throughout all our deliberations we have tasked ourselves to also minimise the ‘Emotional Threats or Damage’ to any participant visiting the centre.

  • WHAT IS OUR RISK ASSESSMENT PROCESS?
  • Our staff went through a process to enquire:

    • Where and what is the risk?
    • Who is at risk and of those who may be at a greater risk?
    • What do we do now to reduce that risk?
    • Are those things recorded and repeatable by others?
    • Do we need to do more?
    • Is that risk acceptable?

    An element of our assessment was to lower the risk to a level that if accidents did happen, it would more likely be minor and could be treated by our staff (NOLS certified to administer first aid) or in some cases might require attention from our local hospital, which is only 5 Kms away.
  • WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT RISK LEVELS?
  • All these deliberations produced a judgment at the end that the activity was, either:
    • A low risk activity
    • A medium acceptable risk activity
    • An acceptable high risk activity, requiring close attention or supervision
    • An unacceptable activity at the moment, that should not be included in our documentation

    DAILY ASSESSMENTS: We have also introduced a daily risk assessment and incident reporting process. This requires our senior staff members to assess and authorise each activity scheduled that day. They will consider if the activity, weather, supervision available and risk level is right for the people who will take part.

    INCIDENT REPORTING: In the event of any incident occurring, or someone spotting a potential incident, we have introduced a reporting system. The objective of this is to learn and improve our systems.

  • GUIDING PRINCIPLES
  • Safety does not come from just paper. We believe it comes from a set of operating beliefs and principles. Here are the agreed principles that our training staff is committed to operate with:
    1. I will ensure the place I operate in, will be as safe as is acceptable. Acceptability will     be decided on the level of risk.
    2. I will ensure the equipment and usage of it, will be as safe as acceptable.     Acceptability will be decided on the level of risk.
    3. I will ensure all the activities I supervise will value safety and learning equally
    4. I will ensure I contribute to this new discipline of safety mechanism.

    We are also happy to make available for inspection all our related documentation to those who have an interest in assessing our management of risks for themselves or others. We would be also extremely happy to receive any feedback on any of our actions. Maintaining safety is a continuous 'Work in Progress project.'