| Working With Community Partners | Reaching the Broader Community |
Why it is important to have community groups and organizations as partners.
All members of a community share responsibility for protecting the safety and health of their young people. During the course of a young worker project, you may want to reach beyond the organizations and groups described in previous sections of this guide to include the broader community. Working with an array of local institutions and groups, you can contribute to a community standard that insists on well-trained employees and safe workplaces.
Reaching out to organizations and groups in your community
Identify community organizations, institutions, and groups that provide services and information to teens and others in the community.
Discuss with them ways they can incorporate young worker safety and health information and activities in their existing practices and policies.
COMMUNITY GROUPS TO CONTACT
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Provide resources and training to community organizations.
Distribute posters, brochures, and other materials to groups that provide information to members of the community, such as youth-serving organizations and health and social service centers. Look for ways to include worker safety and health information in their publications and services.
Consider providing training for the staff of these community organizations, so they can better answer questions about child labor laws and workplace safety. The training should include information and resources on child labor laws, safety and health training requirements, and strategies for protecting young workers on the job. Reassure staff that they do not need to become safety and health experts and that their most important function may be to provide referrals to the appropriate sources of information.
You may provide training yourself, or find others in the community who have expertise in safety and health and in training youth.
Help local agencies and organizations integrate young worker safety and health into existing activities and policies.
In addition to providing materials and training to organizations in your community, encourage and help them to make protecting young workers part of their regular business. Organizations and institutions can integrate occupational safety and health into existing programs:
—Linda Delp
Youth-serving organizations—Many youth-serving organizations, such as the YMCA and YWCA, Boys and Girls Clubs, and community drop-in centers sponsor workshops related to health issues. While these workshops typically focus on issues of substance abuse prevention, sexuality, nutrition and exercise, occupational safety can be added to the agenda. Provide curriculum and ideas to the staff and suggest that they link the issue of young worker safety to other topics of interest to teens such as worker rights and sexual harassment. Include booths on workplace safety at job or health fairs.
Youth fair becomes venue for sharing health and safety materials
Each year for 3 years, the Brockton peer leaders prepared a Young Workers table for a regional Youth Fair. They knew they would be competing for the attention of the 300 teens who attend the fair with other booths on drugs, alcohol, safe sex, and exercise, so they developed a colorful board that lit up when participants correctly answered questions about workplace safety. The table was well attended and sparked many questions, particularly about the number of hours teens can legally work.
—Robin Dewey
Community development associations—Neighborhood associations usually address crime and safety concerns. However, worker safety can also be of interest to local groups. Offer to provide materials and training at block club, church, and other local meetings. These venues can also be good for peer educator presentations.
Cultural organizations—Members of ethnic groups may belong to cultural associations that provide information and activities related to health, social services, recreation, and education. These associations provide an opportunity to reach members of the community who may be especially vulnerable to occupational injury because of limited English proficiency, employment in high-risk jobs, or lack of awareness of child labor laws. Provide these organizations with materials about young worker safety, and encourage them to add the issue to ongoing workshops and meetings.
Latino community center hosts teen performance on workplace hazards
At a Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) event, a traditional Mexican ceremony of remembrance for the dead, peer leaders in Los Angeles performed a skit to dramatize the link between workplace hazards, illnesses, and death. As a Día de los Muertos altar shone with candles and photos to remember those who died, the teens portrayed a young worker who was asphyxiated by hazardous chemicals at work, a sad testament to the exploitation of immigrant workers and the lack of adequate enforcement.
—Linda Delp
Labor organizations—Labor organizations and legal aid groups are instrumental in advocating for workplace rights. Many of them understand the importance of educating young people about safety and health and are willing to contribute valuable information and expertise to young worker projects. They may wish to speak in school classrooms, drawing on their own experiences with safety and health on the job. Union members also may be interested in learning more about protecting their own children who are working.
Union representatives speak at community workshop
Union representatives spoke at a workshop held for parents and teenagers at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles. We contacted a local union that had successfully confronted sexual harassment at a nearby hospital and another local union that fought for a ventilation system at a small manufacturing company that used chemicals. The union representatives described the importance of working together to resolve problems and the teenagers at the workshop became more aware of the role of unions in improving workplace health and safety conditions.
—Linda Delp
Government agencies—Many local agencies set policies and provide information related to young worker safety and health:
The mayor's office is interested in economic development and in policies that promote adolescent health.
Three agencies that regulate aspects of workplace safety are the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the State Department of Labor office (within which the Wage and Hour Division usually oversees child labor laws), and the Workers' Compensation Bureau. Often, these agencies have area branches or representatives who can work with your community (see Appendix B).
As part of its broad role in promoting health and preventing disease, the local health department should participate in many aspects of a young worker project. In fact, the local health department may be the most appropriate organization to coordinate the entire project. The department can also assist with the initial needs and resource assessment, conduct health promotion campaigns, sponsor teen health education workshops, and contribute to other activities. In addition, as one of the department roles is to inspect restaurants, department inspectors can inform employers directly about ways to make the workplace safer for teens.
Resolved by the Oakland City Council:
The Week of May 12, 1997, is Safe Jobs for Youth Week—As part of a public awareness campaign in Oakland highlighting the need for teens, parents, employers, and the community to pay more attention to the safety of working teens, we worked with Oakland City Council members to develop a resolution in support of Safe Jobs for Youth Week. The Mayor presented the resolution to health and safety peer educators from Oakland Technical High School, and he talked about his own early work experiences. He asked Oakland's employers to make a special commitment to protecting Oakland's working teens.
Work with the local media
Local media can play an important role in raising awareness about workplace safety and health for teens. If your organization has a public relations (PR) or press office, contact them to enlist their aid. They can get coverage for you and make sure that it fits with both your objectives and the overall objectives of your organization. Frequently, they cultivate close relationships with media organizations.
Getting media coverage takes some groundwork if you don't have a PR department. Find out what local media are available to you. Neighborhood papers, radio and television stations, and cable systems (including community and health access stations) may also be available. Next, read the newspapers, and listen to and watch the news programs. Try to identify journalists who are doing stories that are similar to the issue of workplace safety and health for teens. Journalists tend to specialize because of their own interests or their assignments. You may be able to tap those special interests with some aspect of your project.
Next, create a plan for getting coverage. Journalists need to fill regular quotas for fresh copy. Your job is to make it easier for them to fill their quota. Pick one or more journalists and call them to suggest ways they can cover the issue of young worker safety and health. When you do this, be sure to connect young worker issues to other issues that they've already covered. Offer them press releases about your project—that's material they can put to immediate use. In addition, invite them to attend one or more project activities to give them more material. If you can, develop a list of community people who are articulate and who can talk about your project with the journalist. Reporters will almost always ask you for such referrals. In particular, look for young workers who have compelling stories to tell and are willing to be interviewed by the media. Try to think of several aspects of your project that are worthy of coverage. Followup any coverage you receive with appreciation and suggestions for further coverage.
The peer leaders in Brockton worked with the director of the local cable television station to produce a public service announcement (PSA) directed at teen workers. The 30-second PSA was written, acted, and taped by the students. Aired daily for several months, it featured various types of workers while delivering the following message:
Project staff tell story to the Los Angeles Times
A UCLA-LOSH program staff person met a Los Angeles Times reporter at a Workers Memorial Day event honoring workers who had died on the job in the past year. She "pitched" to the writer an idea for a story about teen worker safety. The reporter liked the idea and wrote a story based in part on interviews with working teens at Jefferson High. CNN News saw the article and followed up with another story. The publicity was great for the project, and it taught us how the print and electronic media often pick up story ideas from each other.
—Linda Delp
