Standard of Care

In providing our duty of care we need to be aware of the standard of care, i.e. what a reasonable person would have done, or not done, in the same circumstance.

Duty of care involves the responsibility to be careful; standard of care involves the consideration of how far one is expected to go in being careful. This standard of care may be determined by an organisation’s guidelines, a leader’s resource manual, volunteer training program or by what can be reasonably expected of a person in a given role. Standard of care can be breached through a failure to adhere to the documented requirements, through ignoring a reasonably foreseeable danger or not taking steps to safeguard those inyour cares. Not speaking up when you know that you are participating in an activity where, in your opinion, someone else does not apply a duty of care can also be interpreted as a breach of standard of care.