Health & Safety

Here is the form to report any safety concerns (please print and fill out)

We take our responsibility to ensure the safety of all the Adults & children in our sections very seriously. The amount of attention we pay never changes regardless of which section your child is in. The amount of freedom to learn in a safe environment will increase with the child’s age. For example, whilst we would not leave a Beaver in charge of a fire, a Scout would be observed from a safe distance and an Explorer would need even less supervision.

All activities from the weekly meeting to major events and camps are risk assessed. Here is an example of a Standard risk assessment template that we would use for most activities. For camps, here is an example of a completed camp risk assessment. Clearly each camp may have slightly different hazards or considerations, so for each camp we would complete a new document but largely based on this one.

We must, however, all bear in mind that Scouting is about adventures and learning by doing. For example, we do use open fires and play games with elements of contact. We firmly believe that a Scout should learn about risk and danger through supervised exposure in the safest possible environment that allows them to understand the risks and use this understanding to look after themselves appropriately. But all the time we need to ensure minimal actual exposure to risk of injury, either to the Scout, or to the volunteer helpers and leaders.

If you wish to discuss any health and safety issue please contact your relevant section leader. Please let us know of any issue regarding your Scout that we may need to know about to help safeguard them, again by working with the section leaders. This Group health form is the best method to inform us of any health or medication needs we need to be aware of.

For all activities that we undertake, either we hold permits or we ensure the activity is run by someone with the correct permit in line with the Scouting Association Policy organisation and rules (POR), If a specific permit is not required the activity will be covered by the risk assessment process described above. Our Scouting leadership team and helpers have spent a significant amount of time to gain activity permits, first aid training and Scouting training to ensure they can provide the safe environment required in line with Scouting policy organisation and rules.