ISANA

Shereen Ghobrial

Abstract: Each year, the University of Queensland opens its doors to thousands of new international students.
Although Student Support Services at the University of Queensland introduce international students to some essential safety issues relating to their new environment within the first few days after arrival, it has become apparent that given the number of avoidable critical accidents over the past few years, more specific information was needed to ensure students are made sufficiently aware of the dangers and hazards of their new surroundings. This practice based paper aims to describe the design and implementation of the ‘Safety and International Students’ session at the University of Queensland, and the measures taken to ensure that the information provided caters to the needs of international students. Further, this session is designed to introduce, reinforce and equip international students with a greater knowledge base of safety issues that is imperative to maximise their safe stay and reduce behaviour induced and therefore preventable critical accidents. The safety session is a compulsory one hour component of Orientation Week and is repeated twice to allow for maximum attendance. This study is a result of two years of reflective practice initiated by the International Student Advisers at the University of Queensland. Six hundred and fifty-three student evaluations were collated over the two years and feedback provided was very positive. This Safety Session was also presented at the Queensland ISANA Branch Meeting in March 2006 and was extremely well received.

Keywords: Safety, International Students, Critical Incidents, Duty of Care, Risk minimisation

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