Safety is of paramount importance at the Boyle River Outdoor Education Centre.

By taking students into the outdoors and presenting them with adventure and challenge we aim to promote valuable learning experiences. When you put people in these situations however, there are potential risks and consequences that may be encountered. These must be safeguarded against and, while all risk cannot be eliminated, these risks can be minimised to an acceptable level for the benefits achieved.

We are happy to answer any questions you may have regarding safety. What follows is a summary of the safety measures we have in place.

STAFF:
Staff are integral to our safety policy.   They are role models and trained professionals. We look for staff who hold NZOIA or equivalent qualifications or experience. They must have a first aid certificate and a police check clearance. Before working with a group they must have demonstrated competence and experience in a range of scenarios and skills.  At the beginning of each year we hold annual staff training to keep their skills current and up to date.  The Assistant Manager oversees the Boyle River Safety Management System.

AUDITS:
We are accredited with OutdoorsMark. This is an independent safety assurance programme and requires an independent auditor to come into the organisation and examine our safety systems.  It is a vital piece of our safety jigsaw and ensures that we stay current with industry best practice and provides us with recommendations for our improvement.

EQUIPMENT AND ACTIVITY SITES:
Project Adventure conducts an annual audit of our ropes course equipment.
Equipment and activity sites are routinely checked as part of our safety practices. Instructors check site and equipment for any new hazards before use by our students. A senior instructor is also responsible for more thorough checks throughout the year.

SOPS AND RAMS:
We have in place a set of Risk Assessment and Management (RAMs) and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for our activities. These outline the risks associated with activities and our management systems for these. They document things like equipment, ratios, boundaries, significant hazards and instructor competence among other things. Compliance with these procedures is monitored by senior staff thoughout the year.

INCIDENT REPORTING
We are always looking to learn from our experience and have in place a system of incident reporting.  We encourage an open culture around incident reporting so that staff report incidents and near incidents in a manner that lets all parties learn. 

We are also a member of the National Incident Database, which helps us to analyse our own data and also to learn from the wider industry experience.

This is a basic overview of some of the major areas used to keep staff and clients safe while at Boyle River.  Please feel free to contact us if you require more detailed information.