Comprehensive safety management in educational institutions: facilitators and barriers

Educational institutions must be safe and secure spaces for students and teachers and non-teaching staff. It should be properly managed safety and security to prevent accidents and incidents, creating an environment in which physical, emotional, social, individual and collective well-being is promoted.
Educational administration, managers, teachers, administrative and staff should carry out actions and activities to promote and guarantee physical, emotional and social safety during school hours, involving students and families in safety management and enhancing a culture of prevention.
The following study aims to investigate a comprehensive safety management in educational institutions in Catalonia (Spain). Specifically, it seeks to know how all aspects related to safety and security in an educational institution are organized and managed, analyzing the specific practices performed by administrators, teachers and other staff, and also knowing the opinion that educational community has. There are two overall objectives in this study: (a) Understanding the current development of processes of comprehensive safety management in educational institutions; (b) Analyzing conditions that enhance and hinder processes of comprehensive safety management in educational institutions.
From an eminently qualitative perspective, we have carried out a multiple case study, with a sample of nine educational institutions (three primary schools, three secondary schools and three vocational training institutions) of public and private ownership in the province of Barcelona. The study guarantees triangulation by method (individual and collective depth interviews, document analysis, focus group, and observation and field notes) and by data source informants (headmaster, prevention coordinators, occupational hazards coordinators, teachers and members of educational community, mainly parents involved in AMPA (Parents’ Associations) of the analyzed.
Although the study results cannot be generalized, they provide a close reality of comprehensive safety management of Catalan educational institutions. At the same time, it allows us to conclude with a proposal of a Comprehensive safety management model in educational institutions.