Staff-to-child Ratios in Day-Care Centres: a Concern with Respect to Fire Safety

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68407700%3A21110%2F16%3A00304286" target="_blank" >RIV/68407700:21110/16:00304286 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Staff-to-child Ratios in Day-Care Centres: a Concern with Respect to Fire Safety

Original language description

In case of an emergency, one of the most important aspects determining the safe evacuation of people is their self-preservation capability. This ability may be affected by age or by permanent or temporary impairments of the evacuees. Children under the age of 3 years belong to a population where additional assistance to evacuate is required. The self-rescue activities of children depend on their individual physical and mental development level. Hence, in institutional centres, the responsibility for the evacuation process is taken by members of staff. The current study aims to provide a better understanding of how the safety aspect of staff-to-child ratios influences the evacuation process in day-care centres. The data gathered during evacuation drills with different staff-to-child ratios, performed in four day-care centres in Copenhagen, are presented. Children between 0.5 and 3 years old were involved in the experiments. The empirical data was collected using camera records; subsequently, qualitative and quantitative analyses of the video footages were performed. The results indicate that the staff-to-child ratio plays a role during the evacuation procedure for children and that the total evacuation time decreases with the increasing staff-to-child ratio. It was observed that 64.9% of the staff members in the day-care centres carried at least one child during the evacuation process and 24.5% of the children needed physical help to start the movement towards an exit in the initial phase of the evacuation procedure.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

D - Article in proceedings

CEP classification

JN - Civil engineering

OECD FORD branch

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Project

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Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2016

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Article name in the collection

Proceedings of Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics 2016

ISBN

978-7-312-04077-1

ISSN

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e-ISSN

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Number of pages

5

Pages from-to

190-194

Publisher name

University of Science and Technology of China Press

Place of publication

Shanghai

Event location

Hefei

Event date

Oct 17, 2016

Type of event by nationality

WRD - Celosvětová akce

UT code for WoS article

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