Key staff from over 500 child care centers were interviewed regarding risk assessment and reduction. Responses revealed three risk categories: (1) high frequency, low impact (playground injuries); (2) low frequency, low impact (burglary, vandalism, staff theft); and (3) low frequency, high impact (child abuse by staff, intruder crimes,…

Surveyed U.S. and Canadian dental schools about integration of quality assurance (QA) and risk management (RM) and what mechanisms have been most effective in measuring accomplishments. Main findings included that a majority of schools had a written QA program and committee and many reported significant changes resulting from the program; over…

Identifies elements that (British) courts consider in school or teacher negligence cases. Reviews significant case law establishing liability of schools and teachers for harm sustained by pupils and children's personal liability for careless acts leading to personal harm. Discusses implications of a recent child negligence case. (Contains 14…

Interviews with 12 New Zealand outdoor instructors found that they viewed risk as an opportunity to gain something of value, as opposed to losing something of value. Repositioning risk in this manner could allow the debate around adventure education to move away from being dominated by risk management, allowing consideration of adventure…

Considers risk management and liability issues in cases of camp partnerships with schools, camp alternatives to incarceration for juvenile offenders, and elder hostel programs. Discusses making contracts, hiring attorneys, identifying risks and responsibilities, insuring volunteers, governmental immunity, liability waivers, additional insured…

Places school shootings in perspective relative to other risks of violence children face, discussing the characteristics of adolescent violence and the process of identifying adolescents at risk, noting how to recast the problem as risk management, and examining the need to focus on the development of a positive and supportive organizational…

Despite the growing popularity of the harm reduction approach in the field of adolescent alcohol and substance abuse, a harm reduction approach to prevention and treatment of youth problem gambling remains largely unexplored. This article poses the question of whether the harm reduction paradigm is a promising approach to the prevention of…

Although the world is changing, quality management remains an area of relative calm. Many institutions continue to use elaborated versions of a model that is developed by the Council of Academic Awards and conceived at a time when higher education was not so exposed to market forces, when the policy and regulatory environment was relatively…

The authors' reaction to Dr Teresa Iacono's article "Ethical challenges and complexities of including people with intellectual disability as participants in research" is presented. Among other things, they find that Dr Iacono has done an outstanding job of describing creative solutions for obtaining appropriate informed consent from people with…

College and university counseling centers are being influenced by changing populations of students and the concerns of a variety of constituencies and stakeholders about mental health issues. Although counseling centers can be important institutional resources in matters of recruitment, retention, and risk management, new legal and ethical issues…

There are irreconcilable and contested positions taken around the definition and understanding of risk. The purpose of this chapter is to locate risk discourse more solidly in a social scientific framework by providing an historical analysis of literature dealing with risk drawing from the fields of risk assessment and, later, the social sciences…

Building on the analysis in his "Managing Civic and Community Engagement" (McGraw-Hill/Open University Press, 2007), the author offers an international perspective on the ways in which universities relate to their various communities. Relevant issues of leadership, policy and management are approached through key areas such as: the "narrative" of…

At Columbia College, a 2-year college in California, an Early Alert program was implemented in the middle 1980s to alert students at risk of academic failure to potential problems. With the exception of a few years in the 1990s, the program has been conducted each semester. In the fourth week of the semester, instructors are asked to identify…

This digest in Spanish presents ways that school administrators can realistically assess their schools' security needs. It opens by reporting that some types of school violence are declining, such as self-reported weapon carrying and fighting on school property, which reflects an overall decline in youth violence. However, schools still must…

Dealing with the effects of a crisis on school children and staff is not the primary mission of schools, nor is it the reason why most educators or school administrators entered the profession. Not surprisingly, therefore, many schools do not plan for or prepare to respond to a crisis that might affect their students and staff. This book, designed…