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Running Head: BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB RISK ASSESSMENT

Boys and Girls Club Risk Assessment
Brenna McAllister
Liability and Risk Management, PRT 3520



























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Agency Description: THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF AMERICA
The Boys and Girls Club of America is a national, non-profit organization whose mission
is To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as
productive, caring, responsible citizens (Boys and Girls Club, n.d.). This organization was
founded in 1906 in Hartford, Connecticut, and has since grown to be a nationwide, government
chartered organization. The Boys and Girls Club of America has 4,000 club locations, serving
nearly 4 million youth (Boys and Girls Club, n.d.).
Individual Boys and Girls Clubs fulfill the national mission by providing after-school
services for the children, usually ages 5 through 18, in their communities. Most clubs have
sports programs, higher education initiatives, community service activities, career exploration
opportunities, and safety seminars. Many clubs also have summer programs to supplement their
school-year programs (Boys and Girls Club, n.d.).
One of the main focuses of the Boys and Girls Club since its foundation has been getting
children off the streets, into a safe and uplifting environment. This is especially important for
club members who have two working parents, or come from one-parent households. Because
these members often come from low socioeconomic groups, the Boys and Girls Club is very
affordable and several scholarship options are in place.
I hope to work as a club director. My position would involve overseeing the staff at my
club, programming activities, being involved in regional meetings, setting up club partnerships,
and interacting with all of the youth in the club. In my experience with Boys and Girls Clubs,
there is a teen program director who oversees all teen members and activities and a junior
program director who oversees all members ages 5 to 12, and their activities. As the club
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director, I would help coordinate facility space and resources, and most importantly to me, I
would be able to work with both programs, interacting with all club members.
Unfortunately, as club director I would also be liable for any injury or harm occurring at
the club. All lawsuits would be through me, so it will be my responsibility to limit liability as
much as possible.

Risk One:
Tripping and falling is common anywhere, but there is an increased risk of tripping or
falling in a Boys and Girls Club. With so much chaos and so little staff and resources, objects
are sure to be left out. Also increasing this risk is the fact that many clubs serve food. If a
younger member spills some food, the staff member is not prompt in cleaning it up, and another
club member trips on it and injures him or herself, the supervising staff would be liable.
Similarly, if a group of teens is playing basketball in the gym and a ball rolls out the open door
and is not picked up, a junior member could trip over that ball and be injured. If the staff saw the
ball and could have picked it up but chose not to because there was a more urgent need, that staff
member and myself as the director could be liable. Another example would be a staff or club
member falling or tripping because of worn or old equipment. If the cement on the walkway into
the club is uneven and a parent trips on their way into the building and breaks their ankle, the
club could be liable for not maintaining the property. Finally, if the club has a mat with a corner
folded over at the top of a staircase and someone trips and falls down the stairs, I could be liable
as the club director for not maintaining a safe environment. These risks would all cause
primarily physical injury, although secondary financial injury would be likely if the harm was
severe enough for the victim to seek medical treatment.
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Although tripping or falling is more frequent than other risks, the injury received is rarely
severe. Most often, whoever trips will scrape a hand or stub a toe, and will go on unphased. If a
more serious injury occurs, it is usually only a sprained wrist or ankle and does not require any
serious medical attention. However, if someone were to fall down the stairs they could receive a
severe injury, including broken bones, a broken neck, or paralysis. This severity of injury is rare,
but it is present and the risk should be treated.
In Benton vs. YMCA, Lucille Benton took legal action against the Westfield, New Jersey
YMCA, suing for negligence. Benton slipped at the top of the stairs on her way from the
swimming pool to the locker room. The stair pad she was stepping on slipped, presumably
because the shower room drains were plugged and the stairs were wet. Initially, the trial court
dismissed the case, stating that the risk was assumed when Benton decided to swim, and that the
YMCA has liability immunity as a charitable institution. The Appellate court disagreed that
Benton had assumed the risk and rejected the defendants immunity for reasons expressed in
previous case law. The YMCA had the duty to provide the standard of care, which would be a
safe locker room free from tripping hazards, and it owed this duty to pool users. The defendant
used the defense of contributory negligence, however the court found that Benton acted with
reasonable prudence and was not found to be even partially negligent.
The case states that there had been repeated complaints about the wet stairs. If an
organization has a problem like this brought to their attention, it must make all reasonable efforts
to fix the problem in a timely matter. Another way to avoid liability in this case could have been
to post a sign, warning that stairs are slippery when wet. This transfers some of the fault back to
the plaintiff, because it is making him or her aware of the risk. Unfortunately, since children
under eight years old are not responsible for their actions and children eight to fourteen years old
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are only partly responsible for their actions, this risk treatment would not work in a Boys and
Girls Club. Because of the age of participants, if a club member gets injured, fault will probably
lie either entirely on the Club or at least partially on the Club. As the club director, I cannot
expect children to be responsible enough to avoid risk. I will need to be hyper-vigilant in
identifying and treating risks quickly.
To treat the risk of tripping or falling, I would focus on the places where the most severe
injury could happen. Frequent trips with no severe injury do not pose a serious liability issue, so
I would choose to retain that risk. It would be impossible to close or avoid every tripping hazard,
and it would take a lot of the fun out of the environment if one were to try. However, in places
where serious injury is more likely to happen I would try to reduce risk. Obviously an
organization could not close the risk of falling by eliminating stairs, but it could reduce the risk
by having carpeted stairs with handrails. This would cost a minimal amount of money and
would effectively reduce the risk of tripping or falling down the stairs. Of course childish rough
and tumble play could still present a risk of falling down stairs, but that risk would need to be
treated through disciplinary rules for club members rather than structural or functional designs.

Risk Two:
Another risk that I could run into managing a Boys and Girls Club is heavy items falling
and injuring club members. Many clubs are run in small locations with limited storage space,
and I can imagine that random items will be stored wherever they can fit. If an item is stored
insecurely and it falls down and injures a club member, the club could be found liable for
negligence. Furthermore, if a club member is putting away an item and stores it insecurely, the
club could still be considered negligent. The club owes the standard of care to its participants of
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keeping them safe, even from risks that may seem uncontrollable or unforeseeable. This injury
would be physical, which could mean financial as well if the physical harm requires medical
treatment.
This risk is moderately frequent, however, the severity varies. Most often, an item might
fall and not hit anyone. Other times, a small or light item might fall and hit someone but not
cause injury. Least likely is that a heavy item falls and causes injury. Although this scenario is
least frequent, the risk should still be addressed in the risk management plan.
This event occurred in Willis vs. YMCA. In this case, Deborah Willis, plaintiff, sued the
YMCA of Amsterdam, defendant. 13 year old Willis was at a YMCA indoor sleep-in, which
is similar to a sleep-over. She was lying about a foot away from the wall, under a built-in
storage rack. Peggy Day, a counselor at the YMCA, reached to take a pillow off the rack and
accidentally pulled a plastic arm from a chair off the rack, hitting and injuring Willis. The court
found that because Willis had paid to attend, the YMCA did owe Willis the highest degree of
care, which includes keeping her safe. They also determined that the event was foreseeable,
since similar events had been brought up in previous lawsuits. Since the event breached the duty
of care and was a foreseeable event, the majority of the court decided that negligence had been
sufficiently established to go to jury.
The YMCA and Boys and Girls Clubs offer similar services, and both require the highest
degree of care, and more vigilance than would be required for adults. Situations that normally
would not constitute negligence with an adult victim can be negligence with youth victims
because of the increased standard of care. Risk management plans should reflect this, and every
consideration should be made to ensure club member safety to the degree possible. All risk
management actions should have deliberate intended results, to prove in court that action was
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taken to avoid risk. This case also demonstrates that foreseeability applies even if a similar event
has not happened at your location before. To avoid liability, risk management plans should
consider all possible risks, not only those that have happened before, and take actions to avoid or
reduce those risks. In Willis vs. YMCA, the court judged that it seems not unreasonable to
expect that care would be taken that loose objects heavy enough to inflict injury would not be
left there. This statement implies that the standard of care necessary in youth-serving
organizations must be beyond avoiding obvious risk. Care must be taken to avoid even
inconspicuous risk.
The best way to treat the risk of falling items is to reduce its frequency and severity.
Organization is one way to reduce the frequency of this risk. If everything has a specific place
that it belongs, and all club staff and members know that place, things will not become cluttered
and items will not be placed haphazardly. This will greatly decrease the chances of items falling.
Severity can also be reduced by organization, by storing heavier items near the back and bottom
of shelves so that they are less likely to fall. This could be inconvenient if that item is accessed
regularly, however, the inconvenience would be worth avoiding an accident or injury. Another
way to reduce this risk would be to limit the amount of high storage space. This could be more
difficult to implement if storage space is very limited and the higher space is needed. However,
by keeping the most accessed resources on lower shelves, there would be less distance for those
items to fall, and less damage that they could do. The last way to reduce this risk is to train staff
to be aware of the risk and take especial care when accessing items from tall shelves to not knock
any other items off. Assuming the staff remembers the training, this would be a simple but
effective measure.

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Risk Three:
The final risk that could potentially happen at a Boys and Girls Club is more malicious
than the previous two. Unfortunately, sexual abuse of minors happens in all types of youth
organizations and Boys and Girls Clubs are no exception. These clubs function on the
assumption that the adults there are acting as positive role models, and healthy relationships
between youth and staff are encouraged. However, if a volunteer or staff member exploits that
trust and sexually abuses one or several of the youth at my club, I could be responsible. This
would cause psychological harm to the youth involved, which could extend to include financial
harm if counseling or other treatment was sought. This is something that I hope I never need to
face, but I do need to have preventative measures in place to avoid the risk entirely.
The risk of sexual abuse is not frequent, but very severe. If the situation ever did arise,
several incidences could happen before it was discovered. Additionally, this abuse would come
from an adult in a position of trust, which could cause further psychological damage. The
severity of this risk negates the lack of frequency, and it must be treated as a serious danger and
liability.
In Doe vs. Boys Club of Greater Dallas, a man named Boyd Mullens was sentenced to
perform community service for driving while intoxicated. He chose to complete his service at the
Boys Club of Greater Dallas. The club knew that Mullens was completing required community
service, but they did not call his previous employer to check his background like they usually did
for volunteers because he had asked them not to. Mullens met two brothers who were members
of the club, A.C. and R.M. Coe, and began to develop a relationship with them and their
grandparents, with whom the Coe brothers lived. Mullens asked the grandparents if he could
take the boys on a camping trip. The grandparents asked about Mullens at the club, to which the
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club replied that Mullens seemed okay, however the staff cautioned that it had to be their
choice. On the camping trip, Mullens sexually abused one of the boys, and abused the other boy
on a subsequent excursion. This abuse remained secret, and the following summer the Coe
brothers cousin, C.G. Doe, joined the club and was eventually also sexually abused by Mullens.
The court found that three of the four elements of negligence were present. The boys did
sustain harm, the club did owe them the duty of care of protecting them from such harm, and
there was a breach in that duty. The third element, however, was not present. The court found
that the sexual abuse was not a cause of the club accepting Mullens as a volunteer. It reasoned
that the standard of care was to check Mullens background, and in this case exercising that
standard would not have prevented the sexual abuse since he had nothing in his background
indicating that he was a pedophile. The court also reasoned that Mr. and Mrs. Coe allowing their
grandsons to go on the camping trip with Mullens was not directly caused by the club, and
therefore the club was not negligent.
This case teaches several important principles. First, check the backgrounds of all staff
and volunteers and have a supervisory system in place so that children are never left alone with
unchecked volunteers. Similarly, never sponsor or advertise activities that are run by non-club
personnel, unless club staff will be present and supervising. Lastly, this case teaches that clubs
should never endorse individuals that have not been thoroughly investigated. The club was not
found negligent in this case because they did not endorse Mullens when Mrs. Coe asked about
him, and they transferred that risk back to Mrs. Coe by saying that it had to be her choice.
This risk is severe enough that it should be entirely avoided. The best way to do this is to
have rigorous background checks in place for all staff or volunteers who will be alone with the
children. This process would take substantial financial resources, but it is necessary in keeping
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participants safe and is worth the cost. A secondary treatment for this risk is to transfer it to the
parents or guardians, like the Dallas Boys Club did in Doe vs. Boys Club of Greater Dallas.
Having a policy that directly inhibits advertising or sponsorship of non-club affiliated programs
would help prevent liability. This would transfer liability either to the programs attended or to
the parents for involving their children in those programs. With this risk management plan in
place, my club should be able to prevent and avoid much of the harm or injury that might
otherwise occur.
















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Works cited:

Boys and Girls Clubs of America. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.bgca.org


Cases:

Benton v. YMCA, 141 A. 2d 298 - NJ: Supreme Court 1958
Willis v. YMCA of Amsterdam, 28 NY 2d 375 - NY: Court of Appeals 1971
Doe v. Boys Clubs of Greater Dallas, Inc., 907 SW 2d 472 - Tex: Supreme Court 1995