Job Safety Enters the School Curriculum

New workers - many fresh out of high school - suffer a disproportionate number of accidents, injuries and fatalities, often in their first six months of employment. Many young people are part-time and temporary workers, with less experience and familiarity of workplace hazards than older workers. Across Canada, compensation and health care costs for injuries to young workers are in the millions of dollars.

Alberta's Job Safety Skills For Young Workers Program

To address this issue, the Job Safety Skills Society developed as a partnership of industry, education, and government. Registered as a not-for-profit organization in Alberta, the Society has developed 75 credit hours of high school safety training that is now provided free to 334 schools in Alberta, seven in the Northwest Territories, and even to the Mobil Oil Training Academy in Shanghai, China!

Within the approved curriculum, students are exposed to electrical safety, fire safety, confined space entry, ergonomics, WHMIS, TDG, personal protective equipment, WCB and OH&S regulations and processes, loss control, accident investigation, and development of safety programs. For the first time in Alberta, an Emergency First Aid and CPR course is embedded in curriculum, and for the first time anywhere, a Farm Safety module is embedded in the curriculum. The program is widely acknowledged as the finest of its type in the world.

With over 6,000 students enrolled in the Job Safety Skills For Young Workers Program, the Society expects to change the safety paradigm in Alberta and across Canada. Plans are now underway to introduce the program in every jurisdiction. For more information visit the Society`s web site.

BC's Student WorkSafe Program

In British Columbia, students can take a Career and Personal Planning program in grades 10, 11 and 12 to gain experience in the workplace. In conjunction with this program the Workers’ Compensation Board developed Student WorkSafe, which provides five hours of OH&S instruction during the semester. The WCB is developing a new CD ROM to accompany the program.

Student WorkSafe is being expanded to Kindergarten through Grade 9 this fall. It aims to help students recognize and correct hazards prior to beginning any task.

For information on Student WorkSafe visit the WCB's Web site.

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