The quarterly update of the Guide to Safe Scouting includes two new checklists in the appendix.
The Campout Safety Checklist (PDF) is two pages long with 35 items, and a big improvement in BSA risk management. Some of the checklist items:
- Have weather conditions been checked and communicated?
- Has an adult been assigned to help Scouts with taking meds?
- Is a mechanism in place for contacting a camp ranger or camp office (e.g., walkie-talkie, mobile phone, etc.)?
- Has the location of the nearest hospital/ER been identified and announced to all adults?
- Is the unit first-aid kit in a conspicuous location and readily available?
- Have any incidents been recorded and reported, if necessary, to BSA professionals?
- Have the adult and youth leaders captured any lessons learned from the campout?
There is a similar Event Safety Checklist (PDF) for non-camping activities.
Units are now required to report all incidents and near misses. I’m not sure when this was added, but this is the first time I’ve noticed it. These reports make more paperwork for adults, but are key to improving our risk management. The Incident Descriptions and Reporting Instructions (PDF) sheet establishes incident levels and reporting requirements. Here is a overview with some of the incident types, but read the original, it is a single page with another page of definitions.
- Catastrophic: fatality or life-critical hospitalization, allegation of sexual abuse, major multi-vehicle accident, national publicity — report as soon as possible (after 911 or other immediate response).
- Serious/Critical: other hospitalization, non-sexual abuse, disease or food-born illness outbreak, bomb threat, local publicity — report within 24 hours
- Marginal: first aid, ER visit and released, emergency response initiated, serious near miss — report within five days
- Negligible: near miss, injury or illness not requiring first aid — report by end of charter year
The Incident Information Report (fillable PDF) is linked from the appendix.
There is also a Near Miss Incident Information Report (fillable PDF), but that is not linked from the appendix. It is linked from the health and safety forms page. It should be linked from the Guide to Safe Scouting.
Instead of this colorful PDF for the incident types and definition, I’d like to see them printed in simple text on the back of each Incident Information Form and Near Miss form. The BSA seems to love over-decorative PDFs for basic information.
A set of specific examples would help, too. There is one in the GSS’s Incident Reporting Policy, but more would be useful. If there is lightning nearby and your hiking group takes lightning precautions, is that a near miss? A serious near miss? Not an incident at all? We helped extinguish a single tree fire on a 50 Miler. Is that a near miss or a good turn? Let’s hope the BSA gets enough reports this year that they can give better guidance in 2015.
Most Casual Observer 
Wow. Providing first aid (like a band-aid) is a “marginal” incident and requires a near miss report within 5-days? LIkewise, at Cub Resident camp, during the opening night evening campfire, when they saw lightning off in the distance and clouds blowing in, and sent us all of to bed (closing down a program area for safety concerns) is a marginal incident and requires a report too? Or rain on a rock climbing area which would close it down temporarily? Maybe I’m reading it too literal. But I agree, they may get lots of reports, hopefully they’ll update with some clarification and examples.
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I would think that closing down an area because of severe weather would be a “near miss”, and reported at the end of the charter year.
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On one hand, I’m in favor of more detail in incident reports. It is hard to improve without data. But, I agree that this is a huge change from our current way of doing things.
We had a big thunderstorm at summer camp one year. I saw one Scout with moderate hypothermia and several that were pretty cold. We would have been filling out forms all the next day.
This is our troop crossing over to the mess hall during the storm. This is normally a dry path.
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@Jeff: Looks like if you let your scouts put on the band-aid, you don’t need to report it:
Remember: ANY incident that requires the intervention of medical personnel, involves emergency responders, or results in a response beyond Scout-rendered first aid must be reported.
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Update: The quote I listed above is from the G2SS, but the incident reporting instructions say that “Scout-rendered First Aid” include a Scout or a Scouter, so now I’m even more confused.
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I don’t think we can wiggle out of this one. The incident definition for “First Aid” is “An injury or illness treated by Scout-rendered first aid but does not include treatment that has to be done by a medical professional such as a nurse, EMT, or doctor. Scout-rendered includes a Scout or Scouter.”
Any first aid must be reported in five days. Injury or illness without first aid, plus near misses, are reported at the end of the charter year.
Yes, that means a report for every blister at Philmont, within five days.
I have a separate post about some of the challenges: volume of reports, a paper system, health privacy, and underreporting. https://observer.wunderwood.org/2014/05/26/bsa-incident-reporting/
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