Keeping your group safe

Before we explain more about your roles and introduce the content for individual sessions, we want to say something about your role in keeping groups safe. In community buildings, we often find volunteers doing things that are a stretch for their physical abilities or skills. It’s part of the “can do” culture in service to the community. We sympathise, but it’s important not to let the group do anything risky. It’s simply not worth it for this programme, where definitive investigations need to be left to the professionals anyway. Before the first activity, we’ve included a short risk assessment that includes some unbendable ground rules.

Don’t forget that your leadership of the group gives you a certain status - please strongly reinforce our ground rules during the activities, and make more if there others appropriate to the building. We don’t know what these buildings are like and how well they are maintained - be on the look-out for electrical safety issues, moving parts with guardrails, and so on.

Ground rules

These ground rules are in the reading materials, but you’ll need to introduce them during the risk assessment and remind people of them before any activities where members might be tempted to violate them.

• no ladders

• no worn steps

• don’t go alone

You can help reduce temptation by pointing the group towards safer alternatives. For instance, if the meters aren’t accessible, then it is possible to check some things by looking at energy bills, and the group could arrange to get a smart meter fitted. You can also remind the group that they don’t need to gather every detail about their building. The goal here is just to be well-equipped to have the right conversations with future professionals - who can find out the rest of what they need at the time.