Lessons Learned from the Emerging Workforce: Safety in Schools Foundation
A pilot project started in 2011, designed to provide no-cost occupational health and safety online to high school students. Fast forward to the present, high school teachers and students in Western Canada are using the provided online courseware as part of their curriculum.
As we try to anticipate how and where we can improve, we looked at the usage rate amongst students by course. The results indicate that three of the top five (5) occupational health and safety courses assigned by the teachers to their students are: Hazard Recognition, Hazard Analysis and Job Safety Analysis.
Over time our understanding of the additional impact mental health plays in our daily lives, the emphasis expanded to include individual mental health. Safety in Schools expanded the elements of dealing with specific job hazards and risk understanding to embrace and include the impact mental health and wellness has on individual safety performance, and joint safe work cultures.
The Safety and Health Awareness Risk Assessment (SAHARA) mobile app is an interactive mobile application available on Apple and Android cell phones and other devices, that provides custom risk scoring based on personal hazard inputs and mental wellness evaluation.
For further information, please see https://sisfoundation.ca/.
Empowering our future emerging workforce to recognize, assess, plan and implement safe work practices, across a multitude of industry and risk level is what we must continue to improve upon.
Come join USP in Red Deer at the end of March, details to follow. Together we make a difference.
Ross Wickware
Chair - Education & Awareness Committee
Utility Safety Partners