Table of Contents
Taking Action: Strategies and Projects to Prevent Injuries to Young Workers
A variety of strategies and projects can be used to prevent injuries to young
workers. The State teams in the Northeast teach teens about workplace safety;
educate parents, employers, health care providers, educators, and government
officials; collect and analyze data; and enhance and enforce child labor laws.
| Meeting the Challenge:
Obtaining Materials for Your State |
Many of the curricula, brochures, and other products developed
or used by the northeastern State teams can be adapted for your
State. For more information, contact the relevant State team
or agency or EDC. NIOSH funding for the NYWRC ended in October
2001. EDC and the Labor Occupational Health Program have received
an OSHA grant to create the National Young Worker Safety Resource
Center, which provides training and resources to States working
on the issue of teen safety in the workplace. Resource center
staff may be able to adapt some of the curricula and brochures
mentioned in this section to reflect the child labor laws in
your State. Information about contacting the National Young
Worker Safety Resource Center can be found in the Resources
section of this publication.
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| Brochure (Young Worker Safety Resources
Center) |
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Curricula and Safety Training for Youth
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| Curriculum (Massachusetts/Education Development Center
Inc.) |
Young worker safety curricula teach teenagers to recognize their right to
a safe working environment and to become safer workers. Teenagers need to be
taught how to work safely. They should be aware that State and Federal laws
protect them in the workplace. And they need to know how to identify hazards
and negotiate with employers over unsafe conditions and to whom they can turn
if these negotiations are unsuccessful. These issues are covered in three curricula;
two that were developed with NIOSH funding, and a third that was modeled after
them:
- Safe Work/Safe Workers (created by EDC and the Massachusetts
Department of Public Health) is used in Rhode Island, Massachusetts,
New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
- Work Safe! (created
by the Labor Occupational Health Program at the University of California
at Berkeley) is used in an expanding number of schools in Connecticut.
- Maine’s
curriculum, Starting Safely, is based on these
curricula.
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| Safety Certificate Checklist (Maine) |
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States in the Northeast use these and other materials in a number of settings,
including schools and job training programs.
| Meeting the Challenge:
Getting into the Schools |
In addition to teaching the “three R’s,” schools
are now expected to teach students to resolve conflicts, master
new technologies, and resist peer pressure to use drugs and alcohol.
Lynne Lamstein of the Maine Department of Labor describes getting
teachers to use Starting Safely, Maine’s young
worker curriculum, as an “ongoing challenge.” She
reports, “We have learned to run with the opportunities
we get. We are most successful with vocational education staff
and school-to-work educators. Our greatest achievement in this
area came when Jobs for Maine’s Graduates began requiring
that their teachers use Starting Safely. We have also
outlined how the Starting Safely aligns with the Maine
Learning Results. This allows our program to be seen as an integral
part of the curriculum, rather than as an ‘add-on.’”
Jobs for Maine’s Graduates is a State affiliate of Jobs
for America’s Graduates, an initiative under which States
help disadvantaged youths complete high school, enroll in college
or vocational school, and find and keep jobs.
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A number of groups have incorporated safety curricula or training into their
programs:
- School-to-Career programs: The Bloomfield (New Jersey)
Health Career Foundation augmented Safe Work/Safe Workers with
information about risks to health care workers (such as bloodborne pathogens).
With funding from the New Jersey Department of Labor, the foundation
trained high school teachers and administrators involved with the Health
Science Career Program to use the modified curriculum.
Other teachers in New Jersey’s School-to-Career and vocational
education programs use Safe Work/Safe Workers in work-readiness courses.
Students who complete the curriculum and pass a test receive a Safety
Skills Certificate from the New Jersey Safety Council. School-to-Career
staff report that it is easier to place students who have earned certificates
because employers believe they are less likely to be injured on the job.
- Health education and
other academic classes: The
Maine team is working with that State’s Coordinated School Health
Project to include occupational safety and health in school health curricula.
The Coordinated School Health Project is part of a Federally funded initiative
to help State departments of health and education develop school health
curricula.
- Vocational
education programs: Maine allows vocational
education students to earn a Safety Certificate after completing 55 hours
of coursework and passing written and performance examinations. The
coursework can be integrated into specific vocational classes or taught
as a stand-alone program.
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| Teen booklet (Massachusetts) |
- Job programs: The Middletown, Connecticut, summer
jobs program uses Work Safe! to prepare youth for summer employment.
In Maine, Starting Safely is used in a year-round job training
program for at-risk youth.
- Workforce Development Boards: The Connecticut
State team is working with that State’s workforce development
boards to put into place a requirement that the youth job training
programs funded by the boards use Work Safe! to teach their
young participants about workplace safety. The State team conducts
regional training in which both members of the workforce development
boards and youth job training program operators learn how to use the
curriculum.
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| Book cover (New Hampshire) |
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Other Ways of Educating Teens
The most comprehensive method of teaching teens about workplace safety is
with a young worker safety curricula. However, other strategies require less
time and can reach larger numbers of youths. These activities can help build
momentum in States or communities not yet ready to implement a safety curriculum
and can reinforce safety messages in those that do. Reaching teens is also
a good way to reach their parents and help build public support for young worker
safety. The northeastern State teams found a number of ways to provide safety
information to teens:
- Booklets: The Massachusetts Department
of Public Health (in collaboration with the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney
General) produced Do You Work? Protect Your Health, Know Your Rights.
A Guide for Working Teens, a 12-page illustrated booklet describing
the protection child labor laws offer teens and whom they can contact if
they have questions about safety, health, or work hours. The New Jersey Department
of Labor prepared a similar booklet.
- Book covers: The New
Hampshire State team sponsored a contest in which high school students
designed book covers featuring information about child labor laws. The
contest generated considerable media attention and a substantial level of
awareness among students, parents, and school staff. The Department of Education
sent the book covers to all schools in the State.
- Wallet cards, posters,
and mousepads: The Maine Department
of Labor provides educators with copies of Rights for Working Teens, a
wallet card that is distributed with work permits. Maine produced a color
poster informing teens about their rights in the workplace and whom to
call for more information. Such materials can be distributed at school,
during career fairs and orientations for job shadow days, and almost
anyplace teens gather, including malls, fairs, concerts, and parks.
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Public Service
Announcements (PSAs): The Maine Department
of Labor produced PSAs that were shown in movie theatres (at a special
nonprofit rate). Other theatre chains around the country have agreed
to show young worker safety PSAs without charge. Maine also produced
two 30-second PSAs for television on teen worker safety that have been
aired across the State.
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| Teen Booklet (New Jersey) |
- CD-ROMs: A
mini-grant project funded through the New Hampshire State team developed
a young worker safety CD-ROM, which students in vocational education
schools use to teach themselves about occupational safety.
- Presentations: Several
State teams introduce teenagers to occupational safety through short
presentations in vocational education, career, and business classes. This
strategy could also be used during assemblies and orientation sessions for
summer job or recreation programs.
- Teen focus groups: The Maine Department
of Education used focus groups to explore what teenagers know about workplace
safety, where they came across this information, and how likely they
are to speak up about workplace hazards. Many interesting findings emerged:
(1) teens knew little about the child labor laws and viewed them more as
restrictions than rights, (2) the level of supervision among teens varied
greatly, and (3) their primary safety concern was late-night security. The
information gleaned from these groups informs Maine’s development of
educational materials for teens and employers.
- Child labor law calendar: The Connecticut
State team, in collaboration with a middle school business class, designed
a calendar featuring that State’s child labor laws. The calendar
was printed with funds from the Connecticut Department of Labor Wage
and Workplace Standards Division and distributed State-wide.
- Teen peer
education and assessment project: The Massachusetts
Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH) is involved in
a teen peer education and assessment project funded by a mini-grant
from the State team. MassCOSH recruited a small group of teenagers
ranging in age from 12 to 16. These teens were introduced to occupational
health and safety and child labor laws in a 4-hour training, during
which they developed a peer worker survey (based on the surveys used
by EDC and other States). The survey explores teens’ knowledge
about occupational safety, child labor laws, and workplace rights;
their experience with occupational injuries; and the types of young
worker safety programs that appeal to teenagers.
The teenagers participating in the project used the survey to collect information
from their peers in the community. The results were presented to a meeting
of community youth groups and in a report that informed the development of
an occupational health and safety peer education program.
Working with Educators
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| Slide Show (Young Worker Safety Resource Center) |
Educators are essential partners for any comprehensive effort to teach young
people about occupational safety. But few educators have received adequate
training about occupational injuries and their prevention. Educating teachers,
guidance counselors, and other school staff is an important step in reaching
students with young worker safety curricula and other materials, as well as
ensuring that schools are making the best use of systems already in place (such
as the work permit process) to protect young people. State teams have brought
this information to educators in a variety of ways:
- Conferences: A
Maine State team representative spoke and exhibited information about occupational
health and safety at health education conferences for teens, school nurses,
school wellness staff, and principals. Most health teachers had not been
trained in occupational safety and were unaware of the risks their students
faced on the job. Connecticut has provided abbreviated Work
Safe! training-of-trainers at schools and vocational education conferences,
often using the Why Is Job Training in Safety Education Important to
Teens? slide
show developed by EDC and the Labor Occupational Health Program under OSHA
funding.
- Professional development: The Connecticut Department
of Education offers training on Work Safe! at its annual School-to-Career
Summer Institute. The New Jersey Department of Labor funded training
on a modified version of Safe Work/ Safe Workers (with more
specific information about risks to health care workers) for high school
teachers and administrators participating in the Health Science Career
Program.
The Maine Department of Labor and the University of Southern Maine sponsors
an annual week-long Summer Safety Institute for Educators at which teachers
are trained to teach occupational safety and health.
- Flyers: The
Maine Department of Labor produced a simple, easily photocopied,
one-page flyer for educators on why occupational safety and health should
be taught in schools and the services the department can provide to schools.
They also created a flyer explaining how their young worker safety curriculum
aligns with the learning results required of Maine’s
health education, physical education, and career education programs.
- Department
of Education mailing: The Massachusetts
Commissioner of Education sent a letter to every superintendent in the
State informing them that young worker safety brochures for teens,
parents, and employers, as well as training on young worker safety
curricula, were available from the Department of Public Health. This
mailing resulted in requests for almost 50,000 copies of the brochures,
which the Department of Education printed and distributed, as well
as about 30 requests for training. This experience demonstrated to
the Department of Education that there was a demand for young worker
safety resources.
- Work permit guidelines: The granting of work permits by
schools is often left to school staff who have little or no knowledge
of the State or Federal child labor laws. This is a missed opportunity to
educate teens and parents at the very point that teens are entering the
job market. The Massachusetts State team is one of several teams exploring
the possibility of developing guidelines that would clarify the work permit
system for schools and use the process for providing key information on safety
and child labor laws to teens, their parents, and their employers.
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| Teacher resources (Maine) |
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| Parent booklet (Massachusetts) |
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| Meeting the Challenge:
Recruiting Educators as Partners |
Judith Andrews of the Connecticut State Department of Education
relates how she leapt at the chance to join the State team:
“A year before we officially became a State-wide youth
safety training team, Sue Prichard at the Connecticut Department
of Labor told me that they had been approached by the Connecticut
Department of Health to develop a youth safety curriculum. I
asked to be kept in the loop. I had known since first reading
the Federal School-to-Work legislation in 1994 that addressing
youth safety was first and foremost the responsibility of educators.
But I never had much luck selling this idea. Educators initially
thought that anything work-related had to be the responsibility
of employers. When Sue called, we at the State Department of
Education were already beginning to focus more on work-based
learning because of our School-to-Career Initiative and cooperative
work education program. This project offered a curriculum-based
approach with which educators could connect. We jumped right
on the train. It was perfect.”
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