No employee wants to be injured at work. And no employer wants their staff to be injured at work. Guild Insurance knows that employees and employers have the best of intentions when it comes to workplace safety. Unfortunately, despite these good intentions, we see many cases where early learning workers are injured while at work,
and sometimes quite seriously. And it’s disappointing that many of these injuries could have been easily avoided.

Guild Insurance sees too many cases where an injury in an early learning centre has
occurred while the worker was performing a task in an unsafe manner. We know that in many of these cases the staff member would have been taught the right way to do things and therefore would have been aware it was incorrect. So why does this happen? Why do staff risk their physical health and wellbeing by performing tasks in an incorrect and dangerous manner?

Examples of tasks performed incorrectly

The following are some of the common actions which lead to injuries in early learning centres:

> Standing on swivel chairs instead of ladders to reach an item
> Picking up children rather than lowering to their height
> Lifting children onto a change table rather than having the child climb up steps
> Lifting something alone which is too heavy rather than asking a colleague for assistance

Training

It’s possible that one of the main reasons people perform tasks in a dangerous way is that they don’t fully appreciate the risk. They may have been taught that it’s wrong,
however they may not understand why it’s incorrect and what could go wrong. Therefore, when teaching staff about the correct way to perform tasks, it’s important to not just tell  them what to do and what not to do, but also stress the reasons why. They need to appreciate what could happen and what sort of injury they could sustain. They need to understand, for example, that when standing on a swivel chair, it can easily move causing the person to fall off. This often leads to serious arm injuries, such as fractures, as the person has landed on the ground.

Reminders

Being told something only a couple of times, maybe during formal education or at induction, isn’t always enough to enforce learning and change behaviour. People often need to be continually reminded. Early learning centres should be regularly talking about and promoting safety and correct techniques in the workplace. This could be a regular agenda item at team meetings. There could be signs around the centre to remind staff of the correct way to do things. Staff could be commended when seen doing the right thing. Don’t make education a once off.

Rushing

One of the most common reasons people don’t do things as they should is that they’re rushing and feeling they’re too busy. Too often when staff are busy at a centre, they’ll try to do things quickly and will often look for workarounds to speed up tasks. Unfortunately, this can lead to unsafe practices and injuries. Taking an extra couple of minutes to look for an appropriate ladder or ask a colleague for assistance is surely better than suffering a serious long-term injury which may prevent someone from working for weeks or even months. Similarly, scanning the room for hazards prior to entering may aid in the prevention of a trip or fall.

Lead by example

Managers and senior staff need to be sure they’re leading by example. There’s no point
telling your staff how to do things correctly and then doing it a different way yourself. And if you think you can do it quickly and get away with it, think again as someone will see you. Not only are managers risking injury by doing things the wrong way, they’re also sending the wrong message to their staff. To create a workplace culture that values safety, all staff need to do the things the right way which is the safe way.

It won’t happen to me

We’re all guilty at times of knowing what can go wrong but not really thinking it’ll happen
to us. However, Guild’s claims experience tells us these incidents and injuries happen
to anyone, including people just like you. Just because you may have cut corners with tasks in the past and nothing went wrong, doesn’t mean you’ll get away with it next time. Taking these risks just isn’t worth it, because it only takes one time where something goes wrong for a serious injury to occur.

Early learning and childcare centres are dynamic, unpredictable, ever-changing environments.  For some educators, it’s this type of environment which makes it a fantastic place to work.  However, this environment can also make it a hazardous place to work if the risks of an ever-changing environment aren’t identified and managed.

All early learning centres have processes in place to be sure the centre is tidy and orderly at the beginning of the day with all furniture and equipment where it should be.  However, this rarely lasts long and nor should it.  Through the regular activities undertaken throughout the day, many pieces of equipment can end up being left in areas which may create a hazard and lead to an injury to staff and children.  Also, it’s possible for toys, play equipment and even furniture to become damaged over time and this also creates a hazard.  The solution of course isn’t to stop the children playing and using what’s in the centre.  The solution requires all staff who work in centres to be aware of the risks within their environment and what they can do to manage them.

Constant vigilance

Working in an early learning centre requires constant vigilance from all staff.  This means staff are always looking around and scanning for risks and hazards which could lead to injuries. 

Centres have processes in place where regular inspections are carried out.  While these checks are important, they aren’t enough.  Staff need to be in a habit of being continually on the lookout for risks at all times and in all locations within a centre.

Risks aren’t always obvious

There are some risks which will be obvious and that all staff would know to look out for and rectify, such as toys being left in walkways or spilled drinks on the floor.  However, this is not the case with all risks.  Some are harder to spot and may be unexpected, such as a poorly fitted baby gate closing on a staff member.  This further emphasises the need for constant vigilance and not just looking for common risks.  It means staff should be continually asking themselves ‘What could happen?’ and thinking outside the square when answering this. 

Don’t put it off

It’s not uncommon for Guild Insurance to hear of an injury occurring in a centre due to a hazard which had previously been identified yet no action had been taken.  This lack of action may be due to other competing priorities, lack of funds or the risk may have not been taken seriously.  When a risk or hazard has been identified it’s important that it’s assessed immediately so the likelihood of an injury and the potential seriousness of that injury are both well understood.  This will assist the centre in developing an action plan for what needs to happen to reduce or eliminate that risk and how urgent this is.  Staff and children do suffer serious injuries in early learning centres which can affect them for a very long time.  Hoping the risk won’t eventuate isn’t sufficient risk management, centres need to take action.

Risk register

Creating a risk register is an important process for dealing with identified risks and being sure they don’t get forgotten about.  The risk register should contain important details about each risk including the likelihood of the risk occurring, the potential consequence if it did occur, what actions or steps are required to mitigate or reduced that risk, who is responsible for doing this and by when this action needs to occur.  This register should be made available to all staff and discussed regularly so there is constant monitoring of which risks have been actioned and which still needs actioning.

Whose job is it?

In every workplace, everyone has a responsibility to ensure it’s a safe environment for all who attend or visit.  This means that all staff, including the newest and least experienced right up to the most experienced, have a responsibility to continually be on the lookout for hazards and act on them when found.  Leaving this to someone else is not acceptable.  While some staff members may not have the ability to create the change necessary to reduce the risk, for example it’s not their responsibility to book in maintenance staff, all staff have a responsibility to at least report the hazard to someone who can take action.

To ensure staff do speak up when they see a risk or hazard, it’s important that a culture of speaking up is encouraged.  This means making all staff aware of their responsibility but also listening to and taking on board the concerns raised by staff. 

Regular safety discussions

To encourage and support staff to continually think about safety and identify risks, regular safety conversations in the workplace can be very beneficial.  This can be done in a number of ways such as having safety as an agenda item at staff meetings or by including staff in discussions about how identified risks will be actioned.  This continual conversation encourages safe thinking to become how people do their job, not an addition to it.

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Early learning centres are dynamic, continually changing environments.  This is important so children are stimulated and always learning.  However, this also presents challenges and potential risks for both children and staff which need to be managed.

Guild Insurance has over 25 years’ experience insuring early learning centres; this means we understand your industry.  The following information provides examples of common incidents, which lead to insurance claims reported to Guild.  Following this are risk mitigation tips for running a safer early learning centre.

Case examples:

• A child scaled a 6ft high fence, with the assistance of nearby play equipment, and left the centre.The child was intending to go after his parent who had just dropped him off.The child was found by a member of the public on a busy road about a hundred metres from the centre, fortunately unharmed.
• A child was climbing up some play equipment when she lost her footing and slipped.As she fell, she bumped her mouth on the equipment, fracturing her tooth and splitting her lip.
• A child was running outside and tripped over some play equipment.As she landed, she fractured her wrist.
• A child was closing a door not realising there was a child on the other side of the door.This child’s finger was caught in the closing door and the tip of his finger was amputated.
• Following complaints about an employee’s unprofessional conduct towards children, the employer investigated the matter and subsequently decided to terminate the employee. The employee then lodged an unfair dismissal claim with Fair Work Australia.

Tips to mitigate risks

Identify and act on hazards

There are many hazards in an early learning centre which could lead to children suffering an injury or experiencing an incident which could lead to harm.  Staff need to be continually vigilant looking for these hazards.  And this applies to all staff, this isn’t a job just for senior staff.  All staff have a responsibility to maintain a safe environment and this means staff should be encouraged to speak up if they see something which concerns them. 

When hazards are identified, it’s important they’re acted on immediately.  It’s not uncommon for Guild to see cases where identified hazards are put on the back-burner due to a lack of funds or time to address it.  This isn’t ok.  All centres need to have a process for how identified hazards are reported and recorded, with the person responsible for ensuring it’s rectified clearly noted.  This person needs to have an appreciation for what could go wrong if the matter isn’t addressed and ensure the required focus and urgency is applied.  It’s also important to have a maintenance budget to allow the centre to deal with unexpected yet urgent maintenance issues.  Waiting till more money becomes available could be more costly in the long term if there’s a serious incident.

Ensure there is appropriate supervision

All centres would be aware of the required levels of supervision and ratios for their centre.  However, supervision is about much more than numbers.  Staff need to understand what they need to be looking at and for when supervising children.  They need to know where to place themselves.  They need to be sure their attention is on the children and not allow themselves to be distracted.

Adequate supervision assists in several ways.  It means potential risks may be detected before there’s a serious incident.  Take the earlier case of the child using play equipment to climb the fence.  Not only should appropriate supervision have meant the child was seen climbing over the fence, but it’s possible that staff may have seen children attempting this on previous occasions.  This risk could have been dealt with by moving equipment away from the fence.  Appropriate supervision also means that if there’s an incident, such as a child has fallen and injured themselves, staff will be able to respond quickly and provide an accurate report of what occurred.

Create a safe place of employment

All staff want to work in an environment where they feel safe and valued.  Unfortunately, Guild sees many varied cases where staff claim they’ve been treated unfairly.  This may be because they’ve not been provided their full entitlements, such as salary or leave, or they may feel they’ve been bullied or not given promotional opportunities.

Managers and directors within early learning centres need to be sure their focus isn’t solely on the children but also on their staff, remembering that staff play a crucial role in the success of any business.  There needs to be open conversations and clear expectations regarding how staff are to treat and interact with each.  Managers need to also be sure their expectations in terms of behaviour and work performance is clear.

It’s important to create a workplace where staff feel comfortable speaking with mangers if they have any issues or concerns.  Too often we see cases where the managers are quite surprised a staff member has lodged a formal complaint as they were unaware of how the staff member was feeling.  It’s much easier and quicker to deal with an issue in its early stages.

Understand employment law

Employment related disputes are an ongoing theme in early learning claims reported to Guild.  These claims indicate that some employers may not be aware of their obligations and the laws governing them as an employer.  There are laws surrounding salaries and awards, leave entitlements and terminating employment.  Employers can’t simply do as they please, no matter how their employee behaves, which unfortunately it seems they sometimes do. 

The following two websites contain a great deal of easy to follow information to assist employers, and employees, understand their obligations.

• fairwork.gov.au (Fair Work Ombudsman)
• fwc.gov.au (Fair Work Commission)

If you find yourself in a difficult situation regarding an employment matter and you hold a Guild Insurance Early Learning Business Insurance policy, you’re entitled to two (2) hours of free legal advice under the policy.  This advice can assist you to deal with a matter correctly and fairly while it’s still in its early stage which may prevent the situation escalating into a more serious legal matter.

Don’t think it won’t happen to you

It’s easy to read cases such as those at the start of this article and think that wouldn’t happen to you and your centre.  However, Guild’s claims suggest these incidents can happen to anyone.  Thinking you don’t face these risks can actually put you at an increased risk.  This is because when risks and hazards aren’t taken seriously, the necessary risk mitigation strategies are likely to not be implemented.  Therefore, acknowledge what could happen, and do what you need to do to prevent this.

Avoiding big problems for little people