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Posted By Ian Stone
We have had a question raised this morning.
We have a staff member who has organised a trip with his students, who are all over 18, to Lanzarote, as part of their course. They will be given free time when they will not be supervised.
What would be our duty of care if they had an accident during this unsupervised time?
Many thanks
Ian
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Posted By Stephen J W Clegg.
Hello Ian, A good practice guide from DFEE 1998 HASPEV - Health and Safety of pupils on educational visits states:
"Teachers retain responsibility for the group at all times".
That said, as adults - over the age of 18, I would have thought that they have an individual responsibility to ensure their own safety in the event that they are unsupervised. The time/frequency/duration of unsupervised periods should be identified in the RA.
In addition to this, "Health and Safety: Responsibilities and powers" (a document sent to all LEA's) suggests that a pre-holiday visit takes place to assess what possible hazards await pupils, and the necessary action is needed to avoid, reduce etc...
Hope this helps.
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Posted By Sean Fraser
Not being involved in this particular field, I wonder if the duty of care extends only to the completion of a suitable risk assessment to reasonably foresee the hazards of when they are unsupervised (as suggested in the previous post), providing adequate information of the area, the nightlife, the dangers (crime, cultural differences and laws) and what to do / who to contact in an emergency, and offering a semi-supervised alternative (i.e. night out with the supervisors) so that those who go out by themselves are on their own recognizance.
After all, they are adults and legally responsible for their own actions. If they decide to do something inappropriate, or end up in a tricky situation (involved in a crime either as victim or perpetrator) then as long as they had been advised of the dangers, they only have themselves to blame.
Don't they?
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Posted By Neil Pearson
Interesting question. I would suggest that they can be given some unsupervised time, but I guess there will still be some duty of care, since they're only there because they were taken there. I would make sure to give them ground rules for the unsupervised time, ways to contact the supervisors, emergency procedures, etc.
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Posted By Diane Thomason
I work in the higher education sector and this does come up - sadly there has never been a definitive answer to this question.
I agree with Neil about ground rules being laid down and emergency contact being available at all times etc. Whatever you say to them though, it's physically not possible to prevent over-18's going out and getting bladdered or doing something daft if they want to. As has been said, they are adults - but I can assure you that if they injure themselves doing something stupid whilst drunk, there are plenty of parents who will try strenuously to blame the college or whoever for not looking after mummy and daddy's little baby properly. Many parents seem to believe that supervisors of adult students are legally in loco parentis, which is of course not the case.
There are a few things you can look out for e.g. preventing student minibus drivers from drinking. Other than these specifics it's rather difficult.
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