Safety Moments

A Safety Moment is intended to be a short conversation with your colleagues about safety at the start of a meeting. Take inspiration from your own personal stories or from our Safety Moments library.

What is a Safety Moment?

A Safety Moment is intended to be a short 3-5 minute conversation about safety delivered at the start of a meeting and is an opportunity to raise safety awareness on a personal level.

A Safety Moment doesn't have to be a formal presentation so take the opportunity to get creative!

Examples of styles and ways to present your Safety Moments along with some topics are given in the Safety Moments library, or you can choose your own. Let us know if you have any that you would like to share, and we can continue to build the library.

How should it be presented?

The goal is to discuss a Safety Moment in order to inform and trigger safety discussion, thought or reflection.

Regardless of the topic, you should consider the purpose of your Safety Moment and what you are aiming for people to take away from it.

The idea is for all attendees to take turns in delivering a Safety Moment, with one safety moment per meeting. That way everyone has the opportunity to present a topic over time.

Presenting a Safety Moment can be done in a variety of ways to suit your own and the group's preferences. You could tell a personal story, discuss a news article, create a quiz or even share tips that you've found handy. Take a look at the 10 ways to deliver a Safety Moment for ideas on presenting.

When presenting your Safety Moment consider introducing the subject first to outline the contents before beginning - especially if you are discussing a sensitive topic (e.g. topics related to mental or physical health). This will allow your audience the opportunity to prepare themselves or excuse themselves if they wish to do so.

Where the Safety moment generates discussion, be mindful to keep it relevant and within the time constraints of the agenda.

Why could Safety Moments make a difference?

Actively talking about safety plays an important part in changing the perceptions of safety and can assist people in actively engaging and considering safety.

Supporting opportunities for regular conversations about safety will foster confidence in discussing and thinking about safety, which is why we encourage everybody involved in meetings at UCL to actively support the implementation of Safety Moments.

What could be used as a topic for a Safety Moment?

When thinking of a topic for a Safety Moment, it would be great to see stories shared from your personal experiences that relate to safety, if you feel comfortable sharing them.

The topic does not need to be something you yourself have been through, it could even be a story you have come across in the news, or a useful safety tip that you have found. If you can't think of anything, you can see our suggestions in the Safety Moments library, which you can use to either pick a topic to discuss or simply to serve as inspiration.

View our Safety Moments library →

Last updated: Friday, November 19, 2021