Health and Safety for SVA Volunteers

Congratulations on signing up to an activity, and welcome aboard! This course takes you through the basics of how to keep yourself and others safe while you volunteer. If you've done this course before (as part of another activity you took part in), that's okay. We aim to provide safe environments for our people to volunteer freely and safely. Our goal is for every volunteer to return home safely, having learned something and benefited from the experience.

This health and safety course will cover the following:

  • Health and Safety Overview

  • Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment

  • Illness

  • Emergency

Health and Safety Overview

We believe that:

  • All volunteers are entitled to feel safe

  • Health and safety is everyone’s responsibility

  • Anyone should feel confident to stop an unsafe project

  • Health and safety is a learning journey, which we can always improve.

Hazards and risks

  • Hazards can be defined as anything that can cause harm. This includes a person’s behaviour where that behaviour has the potential to cause death, injury, or illness to a person (whether or not that behaviour results from physical or mental fatigue, drugs, alcohol, traumatic shock, or another temporary condition that affects a person’s behaviour).

  • Risks can be defined as anything that can arise from people being exposed to a hazard.

Illness

If you are feeling unwell on the day, please do not attend. Your health and safety and that of all the other volunteers is of the utmost importance.

Emergency

In the event of an emergency, the following steps are to be followed at a minimum:

  • Project ceased immediately

  • Move to a safe area, as per the briefing, if necessary

  • Emergency services called (if required)

  • Key contacts called

  • Volunteers await instruction from the activity lead for next steps

  • Volunteers to head home if deemed safe by the activity lead. The activity is only to recommence if the emergency is resolved and it is appropriate to do so. 

You’re almost done!

Fill in the form below and we will update your records to show you have completed this training!