Rank: New forum user 
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Good afternoon all, I have recently done an overview of all the Health and Safety Forms for staff in the SEN school I work in. I discovered that the school has never had individual staff RAs. I have been through all the medical check forms and have now got 31 possible RAs to write. Some of these ailments include things like mild arthritis, thyroid problems, IBS and Kidney Stones. Is there a guide of what needs to be risk assessed and what doesn't. I've written RAs for all sorts of situations but am really struggling to write personal ones for people. I hope that makes sense. Thanks
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Rank: Super forum user
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I would suggest you only need to look at those conditions which would be affected by your work activities or that could put a person in danger. I would not consider thyroid and IBS something that needs to be assessed - I have thyroid issues and would really wonder about someone if they wanted to do a risk assessment on me. I consider diabetes, epilepsy, some heart conditions perhaps and pregnancy - depends on roles etc
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Your issue is likely related to the individual care plan of the children in an SEN environment.
Where a child is prone to running off is it appropriate to deploy someone whose activity is limited by arthritis.
IBS can (in extreme) make the individual require frequent and or urgent toilet breaks so would this person be suitable for a child with a permanent one on one supervision or engagement requirement?
It is the childrens behaviour - biting, kicking, throwing, spitting etc. - that is more likely to place staff, and other pupils in danger, than the ailments of the schools employees.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Your issue is likely related to the individual care plan of the children in an SEN environment.
Where a child is prone to running off is it appropriate to deploy someone whose activity is limited by arthritis.
IBS can (in extreme) make the individual require frequent and or urgent toilet breaks so would this person be suitable for a child with a permanent one on one supervision or engagement requirement?
It is the childrens behaviour - biting, kicking, throwing, spitting etc. - that is more likely to place staff, and other pupils in danger, than the ailments of the schools employees.
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Hi Matt Seems to me that this is a classic case of the need to involve the workforce in risk assessment. They understand their own personal medical issues (if they are prepared to discuss them relatively openly) + they also probably have a better idea of the individual needs and behaviours of the children they are teaching or otherwise caring for. So Teacher X is not suited to doing such and such work with Child A (and possibly Children B and C in say 1:3 teaching) due to the following....unless we put the following mitigations in place, or not at all.
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Ideally there will be lots of information about the children and their issues and needs provided by Social workers, medical experts etc. The risk assessments you do are not just to protect the staff but also the children. I have great experience of SEN kids and staff who have their instructions but do their own thing thinking all kids are the same, that causes so many problems. You need to gather all available information about the children, question if there should be more and ensure the staff are aware of it all. Staff need special training and experiance to work with special needs kids.
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Looks like we are starting to mix the needs of staff and the children here - I agree with what others have said that you only need to do a personal risk assessment has an actual safety effect - so for example i recently suffered a detached retina which unfortunately they have not been able to reattach. My personal assessment (which i wrote LOL) identifies some areas of working at height, in particular fixed ladders, which i will no longer do as my 3D close perception is rubbish which increases my risk of falling.
For children i would expect them to have a care plane - hate it when we call it a risk assessment.
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Originally Posted by: HSSnail  Looks like we are starting to mix the needs of staff and the children here - I agree with what others have said that you only need to do a personal risk assessment has an actual safety effect - so for example i recently suffered a detached retina which unfortunately they have not been able to reattach. My personal assessment (which i wrote LOL) identifies some areas of working at height, in particular fixed ladders, which i will no longer do as my 3D close perception is rubbish which increases my risk of falling.
For children i would expect them to have a care plane - hate it when we call it a risk assessment.
Yes all SEN chilren up to age 25 will have a care plan, EHCP for education and that will have the "rules" for the children at school/college. It is not called a risk assessment but it is in another name. My daughter is one such SEN kid, she is 22 now and in college. we have previous experiences of schools failing our daughter and one college refused to continue her higher education because they were not prepared to follow her needs as set out in the EHCP. The Carer's they provided made their own "rules" up which made matters worse. We found the Courts are on our side but it is a very long road. New technology doesn't help whearas we used to have EHCP meetings in the school/college where we met all responsible people face to face and more seemed to get done. now those meetings ore on TEAMS and very impersonal. Attendees are in and out to take phone calls or to join another meeting and the right people do not always turn up. Sorry to go off the point but this is the experience of a parent with experience of the risk assessments for SEND kids not worth the paper/PC its written on. The risk assessment for the employee has to inclide all available information about the children, if it doesn't the children are at risk and so are the employees it it all goes wrong. Edited by user 13 November 2023 12:02:06(UTC)
| Reason: something I should have included
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"Sorry to go off the point but this is the experience of a parent with experience of the risk assessments for SEND kids not worth the paper/PC its written on. The risk assessment for the employee has to inclide all available information about the children, if it doesn't the children are at risk and so are the employees it it all goes wrong."
Sorry but i cannot agree - this would mean every member of staff would need a different risk assessment for every child they are interacting with - when what they actualy need is to undertsand the Care Plan. For some reason teh site does not acknolage part of my post was a quote Edited by user 14 November 2023 11:27:35(UTC)
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Every member of the Caring team need to know about all of the SEND kids who may be in their care. When a carer is absent a different carer takes over, sometimes Agency staff are called in. If they don't know everything they need to know the child will suffer. One problem with Zoom, Teams meetings is the parents cannot meet the carer/s and discuss the ins and out of required care. Every child is different and they all have their different needs. Seems some have no experience of SEND children and just read the books.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Research@92 Suggest you read the Forum rules which prohibit commercial advertising except under specific circumstances. REPORTED.
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