Rights

What Is A Risk Assessment Tool?

When we talk about the "Risk Assessment Tool," we are talking about a small booklet. This "booklet" is about how you can make safer choices by understanding what risk is. When we can see risk we can plan how to make safer choices. We call this booklet a tool because we can use it to help build better plans.

Part I - Helping You Understand What Risk Is

• Dying
• Getting sick
• Being alone too much
• Being arrested by the police
• Not Having a Safe And Healthy Place To Live
• Not having enough money for food and rent
• Someone abusing you
• Someone not letting you make your own choices
• Risk can cause you to be hurt.

1. Spot risks in your life.
2. See how these risks might hurt us.
3. Talk about safer choices.
4. Make safer choices.
5. Make a plan for safer living.
6. Decide who will help you to live safer.
7. Help people who care about you to feel better.

• You and the people you trust the most have looked for risks in your life and have planned to help make your life safer

• Whenever you are doing planning in your life.
• When you are thinking of making a big change in your life like moving.
• If someone you know tells you that they are worried about you for some reason. It is a good idea to look into other people’s concerns when they have to do with your safety.

1. Pick the people you want to help you with the risk assessment. These people should know you very well and care about you.
2. Pick a leader for your team. This can be yourself or someone else who feels comfortable doing this. The leader’s job is to make sure that everyone stays on track.
3. Come prepared. Everyone should read the Risk Assessment Tool and try to understand it as much as possible.
4. Go through the list of questions in Part Two of the Risk Assessment Tool. This will help you see the risks in your life
5. Come up with a plan for living safely.
6. Live the life that you want to live more safely

Part Two - Spotting Risks

1. Do you feel that you are given enough information, and that you understand enough to make your own decisions?
2. Do other people let you make your own decisions?
3. Do you feel that you have a way of letting people know what the things you like most are?
4. Are you allowed to do the things you like most? And, do you have some way of doing the things that are most important to you?
5. Do you know that you can say no to any treatment that you are receiving?

1. Do you have enough money, every month, to pay for the most important things in life? These should include a place to live, food, transportation, and clothing.
2. Do you have a way of making sure that these important things are paid for every month?
3. Do you have people that you can talk to or places that you can go to get information about managing money?

1. Every city has safety rules for building. These rules are to make sure that any building that is used as a home is safe enough to live in. Does your home pass these rules?
2. Every home should have heat, water and electricity. Does yours?
3. Some furniture and furnishings are very important (like a bed, table and chairs and lights.) Do you have the things that are needed for daily living?
4. Do you feel safe where you live?
5. Can you get help in case of an emergency?

1. Do you eat good foods?
2. Do you get exercise by doing things like walking, dancing, sports etc.?
3. Do you avoid taking chances with your health by doing unhealthy things like smoking or eating way too much?
4. Do you have regular visits to your doctor and dentist?
5. Do you take the medication that you need to keep healthy?

1. There are lots of little things all around us that can cause us to get hurt. For example leaving your doors or windows unlocked so that anyone can get into your home. A broken staircase. When things like these are noticed, are they dealt with to make these places safer?
2. When you are alone, do you know how to keep yourself safe?
3. Do you know what happens if you break certain laws.
4. Do you know how to get help in an emergency?

1. People can get sick from not washing properly. Do you keep yourself clean?
2. Do people tell you that they don’t want you around because you smell bad or because you are dressed in a way that is not right for what you are doing (like dirty clothes in a clean work place)?
3. People can also get hurt if they don’t wear clothing that is right for the weather.

1. We all need to be understood by the people that are most important to us. Do you have a way of making yourself understood? This can be by using words, sign language or any other way that you tell people things.
2. It is not good for people to live all alone and never talk to other people. Do you have people in your life that you talk to regularly?
3. Some times we can do things to others that hurt them and put us at risk because of the consequences of our actions. For example, being rude to our neighbours in an apartment building can get us kicked out. Hurting someone badly is another example of this because we could go to jail. Do you make sure not to hurt other people?

1. Everyone needs things to do during the day. Do you have things to do?
2. Do the things that you do during the day meet your needs? Are you as busy as you want to be? Are you doing things that are important to you? Do you see as many people as you would like to?

Part Three - Managing Risk

1. Listening (Boxes 2 to 6): This branch, called Listening, is about everyone listening to why you might want to live in a way that makes the chances of you getting hurt bigger. The reason we start with this one is because sometimes, people make bad choices or risky choices because they don’t think they have any other choice. So when you help people understand why you are making a risky choice, they might be able to help you find safer ways of getting what you want.
2. Giving People A Chance To Learn (Boxes 8 to 14): A lot of times, something that you might choose to do is risky only because you have not done it enough. You might not know how to do something. Maybe you haven’t had enough practice. The more you do things, the better you get at them and the smaller the chance of you getting hurt becomes. This branch is all about seeing if you can make the chances of getting hurt smaller just by learning how to do something or by getting more practice.
3. Changing Things Around You (Boxes 15 to 19): Sometimes, you can lower the chance of getting hurt just by changing things around you. For an example of this, think about someone who is not good with the phone but wants to live by himself or herself. Because this person is not good with the phone, there is a risk that they could not get help in an emergency. So, to help this person live safely, an automatic alarm could be installed in their home. Also, doing little things like making sure there is nothing in your home to trip over can help you live safer.
4. Changing The Help That You Get (Boxes 20 to 24): A lot of times, this is the first thing that people think of when trying to lower a person’s chances of getting hurt. But this way of lowering risk is one that might make you need more and more help instead of less and less help. It is also one of the most expensive ways of helping you. Because of these things, this branch is the second last one. Sometimes though, the only way for you to be safe might be by making sure you have someone’s help with your choice of how to live.
5. Dealing with Difficult Situations (Box 25): We hope that branches one to four will be enough to find a way of lowering risk. In some cases though, it won’t be. Because this will only happen in more complicated cases, there are no boxes in this branch.