Essential Skills through Safety and Health

 

from March 2012 Research Scan [pdf]

Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) undertook a two-year (2010-2012) national project to identify and promote innovative workplace initiatives that “embed” Literacy and Essential Skills training within companies’ occupational safety and health training programs. It developed a curriculum (Learning a Culture of Safety) for a ten-week program of one hour a week, with two workers from each of the 35 companies participating as pilot sites.

The program includeda qualitative research study in which twenty-nine recent immigrant workers speaking Mandarin, Punjabi or Tagalog (the three largest linguistic groups of immigrants to Canada) were interviewed in their mother tongue about health and safety in their home countries and in Canada. Most of them had been in Canada for fewer than three years and were in temporary employment situations. All were working in manufacturing or warehousing workplaces in the Greater Toronto area.  A report of this study has been drafted but has yet to be published.

The project also investigated the state of Occupational Health and Safety training for First Nations and whether there were practices and materials that could be incorporated into the Learning a Culture of Safety curriculum. A report on this topic is a project deliverable.

An article on this project in the Canadian HR Reporter can be found at http://www.essh.ca/download.php?id=162. Further information on the project, and links to course materials, can be found at http://www.essh.ca/en/.

Keywords:  Aboriginal peoples, Canada, Embedding, English as an Additional language (EAL), Immigrants, Occupational health and safety training, Qualitative research, Workplace Literacy and Essential Skills

 

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