Risk assessment in international projects

'There's no money back guarantee on future happiness', sings Elvis Costello. The same goes for planning projects. You can not be prepared for everything. Still it makes sense to think about those things that could go wrong. Based on your experiences and by going through the programme you can identify where risks might appear. For those risks you can at least prepare yourself. Not on your own but as a team. Decide as a team if you are capable of handling those risks.

• Add your suggestions and experiences regarding risk assessment below (log in with your SALTO username or create one)

Internal and external risk assessment

Who has to do what, in your organisation, in case of an emergency or crisis? Who to contact when things go wrong?

Outside your own organisation, it is important to know and to agree who will do what in case of emergency / crisis. Which details do you need to transfer to which persons, organisations, institutions, etc.

In a crisis situation you need to proceed fast and efficiently. There's no time to discuss nor to negotiate. Therefore these 'risky questions':

• In case of emergency/crisis: who is the contact person in your organisation?
• Who is the contact person in your partner organisation(s)?
• Who will inform partner, family, probation officers, social worker, youth worker, etc.
• Who will inform the other participants (yours and from the partner groups) in the project?
• Who will contact the insurance and responsible for follow-up for this issue? Who's the contact person in the insurance company?
• ...

In order to proceed fast, it is necessary to collect beforehand essential contact details of people and organisations, e.g.:

• Emergency number of your organisation and other organisations involved + who to contact (24 hours on 24 hours)
• Contact details from the most important people for the young person. This could be, according to his situation and request: partner, family, probation officer, social worker, etc.
• Emergency numbers of emergency services in the hosting country
• Contact details from the insurance company
• Contact details from your Embassy or Consulate in the hosting country
• Tip: you can put all this information on a little and handy list and disseminate it to all the involved youth workers in your international project

Listing risky questions:

A list of questions you could ask yourself trying to assess the risks:

• Is all information about medicines, special diets, allergies of participants available.
• What do we know about the availability of medicines in the place we are staying?
• What about insurance? Do we need any special travel documents for a young person recently released from prison?
• In case something happens to a participant do we have contact details to parents, family, foster home, social worker.
• Are there any risks in programme elements planned? How to deal with, how to control, how to minimise these risks?
• Knowing the participant(s) and the programme, what could be challenging and therefore lead to or result in riskfull behaviour?
• Are there special situations or circumstances which can lead to strong emotions for a participant? (e.g. travelling, having not enough individual space, home sickness, alcohol)
• What could be challenging developments in the group process knowing the participants?
• How do we deal with alcohol and drugs, also taking into account 'availability' and possibly different laws or social norms in the direct surrounding of the venue where the project takes place?
• Do we inform the local police about our stay?
• Which phone numbers should we give to participants? (e.g. place of venue, mentor, local police, mobile number of staff-members etcetera)
• Where is the nearest doctor, hospital, police station?
• Do we have a full list of all emergency numbers?
• Do the team members have each others phone numbers?
• What if a young person commits a crime in the host country?
• Do we as youth workers know the different laws in the host country and what the process is in the worst case scenario if a young person gets arrested?
• Can we book flexible travel in case a young person needs to return early?
• ...?

More on health and safety in international projects in the Health and Safety Guide of the National Agency of Ireland at www.leargas.ie or the Trainer's Manual from the Child Protection Awareness Programme www.childprotection.ie

^^ top ^^

Risk assessement example: The Governmental Youth Care Institution 'De Zande'

'De Zande' is a closed educational community facility for minors under the Flemish Community in Belgium. In the setting in Beernem 40 girls aged between 12 and 18 years live. They are placed there by the juvenile court due to a great diversity of reasons. The institution deals with non-accompanied minors, gypsies, girls victim to 'smuggling-refugees, victims of incest, drug-addicts, girls coming out of prostitution etc.

They had some bilateral and one multilateral youth exchange with similar institutions having a comparable kind of target group.

These are some examples from their risk assessment:

• Sufficient staff
• With this group of young people a sufficient number of staff members is crucial. It happens quite often that a girl needs individual guidance, especially in this new and challenging environment which a youth exchange is. So, people need to be available. This means one educator for two girls. De Zande makes timetables for the educators with people being responsible for several hours while others then have the time to relax.
• Clear agreements
• In different countries and different organisations there are different rules and regulations. The approach towards the young people can differ a lot. It's important to be clear about that when preparing a project. Rules about simple things as smoking or drinking alcohol can be the reason for many problems during youth exchanges. It's not always possible to come to common rules. Sometimes you want to stick to the rules you have at home. In that case it's important to explain that to the young people.
• Emergency
• The De Zande staff makes sure that there is always the possibility to be in contact with the people at home when they are on a youth exchange. Therefore it's crucial to check the possibilities for internet and mobile phones. Also they make sure to have access to the local emergency numbers and the local authorities.
• Another important issue is to bring enough medication. Many of the De Zande girls use medicines and it turned out that these medicines are not always available in other countries. Make sure you have a kind of certificate from a doctor which you might need when you pass the border with all these medicines.
• 'Dead moments'
• Avoid dead moments. It's important to have a full programme, especially with this group. The girls easily get bored and that has a bad influence on the atmosphere. Take sport equipment, games and comic books with you.
• Reflection on experiences
• There are a lot of experiences during the youth exchange, every day again. It's hard for the girls to deal with all that. To solve that, the girls write down their experiences every day and make drawings and pictures. It helps them to take the time to reflect and it's a nice souvenir to take home.

^^ top ^^