Week 3 Challenge: Sample RBA Policy Thoughts

So: being a nonprofit focused on adult and family education, we actually have pretty much a zero risk policy for anything that could result in injury or accident. This is required by our board of directors, and is usually the case for community and volunteer base literacy programs where non-staff members do the bulk of the educating work. Focusing primarily on one-on-one tutoring dynamics as we do, there's actually a variety of zero tolerance policies regarding being alone in any private place with any member of the program, transporting anybody in your vehicle, meeting outside of a pre-approved public location, engaging in any activity that could cause injury or risk of injury, that kind of thing. 

Our board actually requires us to have participants sign hold harmless waivers whenever we do any field trips or anything outside officially as an organization, which is required by a few of the grants since some of the adult learners we serve have been referred by the judicial system and/or have been convicted of various offenses via our prison literacy outreach. Therefore, in our program we place a big premium on privacy and risk management, and also expect our participants to assume the risk for their own participation. I'm very interested in the idea of a risky play policy, but don't think it would fit our program at this time. With the methodology that we use to deliver services via parents, our staff and tutors actually operate in a training, resource planning, curriculum development, and support capacity, and do not typically engage with the children themselves. 

I thought about writing up a suggested play policy here for the baby group, but knew our board president (who is a lawyer) would not like that at all. Pretty much the only guidance we give is a set statement reminding the parents that they know their families and children the best, the activities suggested may not be appropriate for all children, and that parents need to use their best judgment in selecting and engaging in any activity recommended from our program. We also enclose regular safety warnings for any of the materials in the hacks, in addition to recommended use suggestions emphasizing safety and parental discernment. That's about it, although I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who has suggestions on how to expand on that.

This was an interesting mental exercise for me because I had never given this consideration before, although I realized that other programs most likely operated differently. I think this is something I may revisit in the future, depending on if this programming continues in the same structure beyond the pandemic.