Developing Future Leaders in Leisure Safety

RoSPA is a proud partner in the Leisure Expert Panel Mentoring Scheme, which aims to support talented people who are in the early stages of their safety or risk management career within the leisure industry.

Every year the Leisure Expert Panel (LEP), a consortium of stakeholders who hold interests in the way in which the leisure industry manages health, safety, security and risk, picks six delegates for their mentoring scheme.

Earlier this month, I led an LEP Mentoring Scheme workshop, which was designed to encourage delegates to think deeply about what the ‘first principles’ for safety should be in their organisations.

At RoSPA we often see really detailed and effective risk assessments for specific sites but sometimes find that practitioners could be looking at leisure safety with a broader gauge.

I asked delegates to focus on two fundamental questions, which all those with an interest in the leisure industry ought to ask themselves:

What are your core safety values and key principles?

What is the number one risk to your company?

After some thoughtful discussion and reflections, we looked at some real-life scenarios where a risk assessment was required at a leisure site.

Delegates were invited to analyse the case studies and use their judgement about what the best course of action would be to be minimise the risk of accidents in scenario.

By its very nature, the leisure industry is lightly regulated compared to other sectors. This underscores the need to develop a generation of risk and safety managers who have the broadest possible understanding of the challenges facing the leisure industry and can implement policies which will meet the needs of all stakeholders.

By working with the Leisure Expert Panel Mentoring Scheme, RoSPA is pleased to play its part in equipping the future leaders of leisure safety management for success.

David Walker - Leisure safety manager at RoSPA

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