A safe learning environment from the perspective of Laurea University of applied sciences safety, security and risk management students and staff

Safety and security (S&S) can be seen as a multidisciplinary topic of study where the audience varies from psychologists to engineers 1. Safety can be approached from an objective perspective. However, there is also the subjective side of the same phenomenon 5, p. 31-35. In this paper, it is argued that the S&S phenomenon has many dimensions, which is the main reason why the interview was used as the data collection method here. This makes it possible to describe and uncover the multiple aspects of a safe learning environment. Interviews were analysed by using content analysing methods. All the interviewees had an S&S background and represented different professional perspectives, e.g., police officers or nurses. The main finding of this study is that the social skills, teaching tools, resources, information flow, and S&S knowledge of the staff have a major impact on the safety of learning environments. According to the literature review and interviews done in this work, schools should have a risk-based comprehensive safety and security management system in place. One can assume that such a system combined with effective leadership will lead to a safer school environment. This paper argues that if an organisation concentrates only on one aspect of safety or even if they have a comprehensive risk-based S&S system in place but there is no leadership that appreciates safety as a core value, it is hard for the organisation to create a safe school environment with a satisfactory safety level for its users.