The Roll of Skills in the Future of Work

On behalf of the NIOSH Future of Work Initiative, thank you for joining us for today's webinar, The Role of Skills in the Future of Work. This is co-sponsored with the NIOSH Emerging Technologies Branch. My name is Molly Leshner and I will be your moderator for this webinar. Now with further ado, let me introduce you to your two speakers today. First we'll hear from Lauren Manger-Ogle. Lauren is a contractor with NIOSH as a social scientist. Lauren focuses her research on understanding and promoting occupational safety and health among workers who experienced a disproportionate burden of work-related injury and illness, particularly young and contingent workers. Lauren is a co-coordinator of the NIOSH Services Sector Program and co-chair of the National Occupational Research Agenda or NORA, the Service Sectors Council. She is also the assistant coordinator of the NIOSH Safe, Skilled, Ready Workforce Program. This program aims to ensure that all workers have the foundational knowledge and skills needed to stay healthy and safe at work before they start a new job or enter the workforce for the first time. It also aims to help workers contribute to a safe, healthy, and productive workplace. Second, we'll hear from Brian Bisson. Brian currently works as an assistant director for the American Federation of Teachers, supporting an array of health and safety initiatives, including coordinating OSHA and Health and Safety Institute trainer courses and promoting the NIOSH Youth at Work Talking Safety Program to complement OSHA 10-hour safety awareness classes. Brian worked for the Connecticut Technical Education and Career System as a carpentry instructor and was an active member of the State Vocational Federation of Teachers Local 4200A for 11 years. As a member of the local, he held several leadership positions within the local. Brian was a building representative for two years, SBFT treasurer for two years, and SBFT vice president for three years. Brian served on a school's health and safety committee and served as SBFT's health, safety, and security committee chairperson, conducting health and safety audits for all 18 Connecticut technical high schools. Brian has an extensive and broad continuing education credentialing across a variety of occupational safety and health topics. And with that, Lauren, thank you for joining us today. Over to you, please. Okay, well, thank you so much for joining today and thank you so much to the Future of Work Initiative for inviting me to present. My name is Lauren Manger-Ogle and Molly gave you a good introduction as to who I am and my role at NIOSH, so I won't spend more time on that. But today I'm going to talk with you about promoting safety and health skills among young and contingent workers in future work. And just to give you a brief overview of what I'm going to talk about today, first, I will give an introduction to the NIOSH Safe, Skilled, Ready Workforce Program. Then I'm going to introduce you to the existing safety and health curricula that the Safe, Skilled, Ready Workforce Program has developed. I'm also going to give you just a couple of examples of the kinds of research that we do within the program. And then I'm going to talk a little bit about a new curriculum that we're working to develop called Safety Skills at Work. And this is a curriculum that is going to be tailored for the workforce development sector. And so I'm going to tell you a little bit about that curriculum and our plans for pilot testing that curriculum. And then as Molly mentioned, we'll hold questions to the very end. Okay, so the mission of the Safe, Skilled, Ready Workforce Program is to equip new workers, which includes young workers under the age of 25 and contingent workers, which are defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as those who have a temporary job they would describe as temporary or a job that they do not expect to last. So the goal is to equip these new workers with foundational safety and health knowledge and skills that they need to stay safe at work and to contribute to a safe, healthy, and productive workforce. And just a minor note, I'm going to refer to occupational safety and health as OSH throughout the rest of the presentation. So why is it important to focus on new workers? We're seeing a growing amount of research showing that young and contingent workers are more likely to be injured on the job. And there's a number of factors that might contribute to this increased risk. So for starters, they might be assigned to more hazardous types of jobs. They also might be less experienced and have a minimal understanding of safety and health laws and protections. These workers might also fear speaking up about safety and health issues or concerns because they're afraid that they might lose their job or they're afraid that there might be some other kind of negative consequences if they do speak up. And then they also might not receive enough supervision or safety and health training. So the disproportionate risk of injury among young and contingent workers really highlights the need to prepare this population with essential workplace safety and health competencies before they enter the workforce or start a new job. So the overall goal of the Safe, Skilled, Ready Workforce Program, as Molly mentioned, is to equip these workers with basic OSH education so that they can be more aware of hazards on the job and how they can go about protecting themselves. So NIOSH has developed a set of eight core competencies for workplace safety and health, and these include the ability to recognize that all workers can be injured, become sick, or even lose their life on the job, the ability to recognize that most work-related injuries and illnesses are predictable and can be prevented, the ability to identify hazards at work and predict how workers can be injured or made sick, the ability to recognize how to prevent work-related injuries and illnesses, how to identify emergencies at work and decide the best ways to address them, recognize employer responsibilities and worker rights and responsibilities when it comes to workplace health and safety, find resources that help workers stay safe and healthy on the job, and finally, and possibly most importantly, how to communicate with others about safety and health issues or concerns. So these eight core competencies are based on established health behavior theory. They are fundamental in that they can serve as the basis for more advanced skill development, and they can really help workers better understand and benefit from job-specific training that they hopefully receive in the future. They're also portable in that they apply across industries and occupations, and they're transferable such that individuals can really adapt and apply them to different situations and across different social contexts. However, unfortunately, these competencies are often missing from existing workforce training frameworks and initiatives. So this is a visual that shows how these core competencies, equipping workers with these core competencies, can provide a foundation on which other job-specific safety and health skills can be built, ultimately resulting in a safe, skilled, and ready workforce. So there's, and we also have some evidence suggesting that providing foundational safety and health education to young people is associated with a reduction in injury, future injuries and illnesses. So the goals of the Safe, Skilled, Ready Workforce Program are to develop and evaluate foundational workplace safety and health training curricula for new workers and advise end users on their use, to conduct implementation research to better understand the barriers and facilitators to adopting and sustaining safe, skilled, ready workforce programs and curricula, conducting research on workplace safety and health hazards and exposures faced by new workers and other groups that are at high risk of being injured or becoming ill on the job, and disseminating research findings to partners across a variety of contexts in education, industry, labor, trade and professional associations, community organizations, government, and academia. So now I'm going to take a little time to introduce you to the existing curricula of the Safe, Skilled, Ready Workforce Program. So topic safety is really the flagship curriculum of the Safe, Skilled, Ready Workforce Program. This curriculum is designed to teach foundational safety and health competencies to middle and high school students, and it's done in six 45-minute lessons. The curriculum is aligned with Common Core and other common educational standards, and it's customized for each state based on the unique child labor laws that exist across different states. And as I mentioned with the core competencies, the curriculum is rooted in established health behavior theory. And we also have a growing amount of evidence supporting its effectiveness, which I'll talk to you a little bit more about later. We're currently working on updating the talking safety curriculum based on lessons that we've learned through Safe, Skilled, Ready research. And as part of this update, we'll be adding a new lesson on work-related stress, health, and well-being. And we're hoping that this updated version will be available sometime in 2024. The curriculum has an online assessment that students can take, and if they get a passing score on the assessment, then they can earn a digital badge for completing the training. Okay, another curriculum of the Safe, Skilled, Ready Workforce Program is Safety Matters. This is a curriculum that was developed in partnership with the American Industrial Hygiene Association, or AIHA, and it's designed really to be an introduction to workplace safety and health for students in seventh to 12th grade. This is a much shorter curriculum. It's only one hour long, and it was adapted from talking safety, and it really just kind of touches on some of the key points of the talking safety curriculum, obviously going into a lot less detail than the talking safety curriculum itself. So this curriculum is used by members of AIHA to introduce teens to critical safety and health competencies. And we're also currently working with AIHA to update the content of this training. And so we hope to have another version of this available soon as well. The third existing curriculum of the Safe, Skilled, Ready Workforce Program is Staying Safe at Work. And this is a curriculum that was developed through a partnership with the Labor Occupational Health Program, or LOHP, out of the University of California, Berkeley. This curriculum is designed for workers with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and it's used by employment agencies, community vocational rehabilitation programs, high school transition programs, and others in order to provide a foundation of safety and health knowledge and skills for people with disabilities. So all Safe, Skilled, Ready Workforce training programs are available for anyone to use free of charge. They're all available on our website. They are all based on extensive input from partners and end users. They, as with the competencies, again, they're all rooted in established health behavior theories. We also try to make all of our curricula highly interactive and engaging in order to promote learning and to promote training transfer, which is the extent to which the knowledge and skills that are learned in training are actually transferred into the workplace. So the goal of our research is to ensure that all of our programs are evidence-based, meaning that we have research showing that they're effective at improving safety and health outcomes. So now I'm gonna give you just a couple of examples of the kinds of research that we do within the program. So our program has conducted numerous studies to assess the effectiveness of the Talking Safety curriculum. And this, what we call evaluation research, is based mostly on the theory of planned behavior, which is a behavioral theory that's been supported by a lot of evidence. So according to this theory, a person's attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived self-efficacy or perceived behavioral control related to a behavior influences their intention to either perform or not perform that behavior. And those behavioral intentions then predict their actual behavior. So our research considers these more immediate outcomes as measures of success, because it's very difficult to follow middle and high school students throughout their lives to see if they're injured at work. So some of the research questions that we look at are, is, of course, the main one is, is Talking Safety effective at positively changing adolescents' safety and health outcomes? And we do have findings from studies that have been conducted in Florida, as well as Oklahoma, suggesting that students have had significant gains in safety and health knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy, and behavioral intentions after receiving the Talking Safety training. Some of the other questions we look at is whether or not teacher implementation fidelity matters and makes a difference in terms of program effectiveness. And so what this means is, does the extent to which teachers are implementing the program the way that it was intended to be implemented, does that influence the effectiveness of the program? And then we also look at what the effects are of teacher and student characteristics and whether or not any of those demographics or other characteristics also influence the effectiveness of the curriculum. So another study that we have currently ongoing that you're gonna hear more about from Brian is a project that we're working on with the American Federation of Teachers, or AFT. And the goal of this project is to prepare high school career and technical education students, or CTE students, in the health sciences in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, which is the second largest school district in the country, with foundational safety and health competencies through a new OSHA 10-hour training program. And really the ultimate goal of this study is to develop a scalable and sustainable model for CTE programs across the country. So I'm not gonna spend too much time talking about this, but just to give you a little bit more of an overview of this project. First, we worked with AFT to develop the new curriculum, which is based in part on talking safety and the eight core competencies. And then it also includes all of the required components of the OSHA 10-hour training. If you're not familiar with the OSHA 10-hour training, this is a training that is really widely used within the construction industry. And it's really OSHA's most prominent safety and health training. But it really has not been very widely used within healthcare or a number of other industries at this point in time. So after developing the curriculum, we gave health science teachers in Miami the training that they needed to become OSHA authorized trainers. And we asked them to deliver this new curriculum to their students, who in turn earned their OSHA 10-hour cards. And we're currently conducting an implementation and evaluation study of this curriculum to determine its ability to influence safety and health outcomes, as well as to try to better understand its potential for sustainability within Miami-Dade County Public Schools, as well as the potential to be able to disseminate and integrate the program into other CTE programs across the country. So now I'm gonna move over to talking about safety skills at work, which is the new curriculum I mentioned that we're designing for workforce development organizations to provide foundational safety and health competencies to their program participants. So I wanna give a little bit of background on the workforce development sector. Workforce development organizations are primarily funded by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act or WIOA. This is legislation that was designed to strengthen and improve our nation's public workforce system and help get Americans, including youth and those with significant barriers to employment into high quality jobs and careers and to help employers hire and retain skilled workers. So workforce development programs offer a variety of different kinds of employment training and job placement programs to over 15 million people annually. And they do this mostly through what are known as one-stop career centers. They're also sometimes referred to as American job centers. So as I previously mentioned, workforce development organizations serve individuals with various obstacles to sustainable employment. So this is things like having limited job skills, having low education, possibly being a high school dropout or having a history in the criminal justice system just to give a few examples. Many of the people who participate in workforce development programs have been in the past or end up working in the future in contingent jobs. So an important note just to understand about workforce development is that the activities of these organizations are guided by state and local boards. And the reason for this is to make sure that their programs meet the specific needs of the region that they operate in. So the National Association of Workforce Boards which is the main trade association for the workforce development sector conducted a survey a few years ago asking regional workforce development board directors across the country about workplace safety and health training practices and needs. And they found through the survey that a majority of those that were surveyed there were about a hundred people who completed the survey. And again, these were directors of regional workforce development boards. We found that 83% felt that it was important that the workforce development organizations in their region provide foundational workplace safety and health training to their program participants but only 20% of those surveyed indicated that they're currently providing this kind of training. And one of the reasons stated for not providing this kind of training is that there is a lack of training resources that really are tailored for and can meet the needs of the workforce development sector. So identifying this need, we decided to move forward with a project to develop and evaluate a new training program to teach workforce development program participants foundational safety and health knowledge and skills. So just to give you a quick overview of this project as four main steps or phases in the first step, we conducted formative research to better understand the workplace safety and health training needs within workforce development. So we conducted interviews and focus groups with board directors, staff from the one-stop career centers, some of the organizations that workforce development organizations partner with. And then we also had a number of focus groups with the people who were actually participating in these programs. And then the previously mentioned survey conducted by the National Association of Workforce Boards was also something that provided us some good information at that first stage. So after that, we worked on developing an initial draft of the curriculum. It is based again on talking safety and the NIOSH ePort competencies, but we also really tried to take the lessons learned in the formative research while we were developing the curriculum. We conducted a couple of beta tests of the draft curriculum with some workforce development programs. Ohio means jobs in Cincinnati and Workforce Tulsa in Oklahoma. And we made some revisions based on that beta testing. And then the curriculum has also gone through pretty extensive review by peers in academia and the research world, and then also by partners and end users. And we made a number of revisions based on that feedback as well. So we're currently in step three, which is the pilot test. And the goal of that is going to be to evaluate the impact of the new training on safety and health knowledge, attitudes, efficacy, and behavioral intentions. And then again, based on the lessons we learned in the pilot test, we will make final modifications to the curriculum. And then in the fourth and final step, we will publish the curriculum on the NIOSH website and work to promote nationwide adoption of it. So just to give you a little bit more information about the curriculum itself, this is designed to be an in-person training, but it can be delivered online through a video-based communication tool, such as Zoom. The reason that we developed it to be in-person is because there is quite a bit of research showing that highly engaging in-person training, safety and health training, has a stronger impact on safety and health outcomes. It's quite a bit shorter than the talking safety training. It can be delivered in about a half day. And the ideal class size is between six to 16 trainees in a class, but there's definitely flexibility in that. It consists of six core lessons, two main activities, and then an optional lesson on temporary worker safety and health. And this refers to workers who are employed by staffing companies to work on the site of a host employer company. And because they have two employers, there's some unique safety and health issues for those workers. And we had thought that was important because we learned through the formative research that a lot of workforce development organizations partner with the staffing industry to help people find employment opportunities. So there's a number of ways that we tailored this new curriculum for workforce development. We've included a number of industry-specific examples. And so this is industries in which workforce development organizations often help people find employment in. So this includes healthcare, manufacturing, construction, transportation, services, and wholesale retail. We have a new lesson on stress health and wellbeing, and a focus on social and organizational competencies, such as communication, decision-making, and problem-solving, because we found that these were important for this population through our formative research. We also have a detailed trainer manual because we know that workforce development program staff often don't have very much background in workplace health and safety. And we wanted to make sure that this was something that anyone could really pull off the shelf and deliver without having a lot of background. We also learned through the formative research that having a completion certificate was really important. So we included that as well. So before I close, I just briefly want to tell you about our plans for the pilot study for this new curriculum. We're partnering with the Pacific Mountain Workforce Development Council in Washington State, and we're working with them to recruit 72 of their program participants. And they're going to be recruited in small cohorts. And participants will be randomly assigned to either a treatment group that will receive the training or a control group that will not receive the training. And all 72 participants will complete surveys before, immediately after, and at a follow-up four to six weeks after the training. We conducted a train-the-trainer session in April where we trained staff from Pack Mountain on how to deliver the curriculum. And they are now gearing up to start recruitment and training next month. So we're really excited to be kicking off this study. So that's all I have today. Thank you so much, everyone, for your time and attention. And I look forward to questions later in the webinar, and I will turn things over to Brian. Thank you, Lauren. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining today. And I want to say thank you as well to NIOSH for inviting me to share this information. Really, as you can see here, the value of an OSHA outreach training program. So my goal today is really to take you on a 13-year journey in about 20 minutes. So the purpose of work, right? Work should be enjoyable, serve a purpose, and affect others in a positive way. After all, most adults in the United States will work an average of 40 hours per week for 40-plus years. A successful career should not be determined solely by the amount of money earned. Work shouldn't kill you or diminish your health or longevity. The act of going to work to earn a living claimed the lives of roughly 14,000 Americans prior to the OSHA Act, so Occupational Safety and Health Act, and, of course, the inception of OSHA. It's been 52 years, because, of course, they opened their doors on April 28th of 1971. And in 52 years, they have, through regulations and standards, have ultimately saved, preserved life for at least 450,000 Americans. So I always like to take the positives out. We still hover at about 5,000 American workers losing their life directly to work. So there's always work to be done, but certainly it has made a significant impact. So our human advantage is the ability to experience, retain memories, and, of course, share the do's and don'ts with the next generation through spoken or written communication. So part of my work-life purpose is giving credence to the value of the OSHA Outreach Training Program that exists in Connecticut Technical Education and Career System, and supporting the program along with my union and management colleagues. So from here on out, instead of repeating the Connecticut Technical Education and Career System, I'll just refer to it as CTEX. So CTEX is the leading force in career technical education in the state of Connecticut. CTEX currently operates 17 diploma-granting technical high schools, serving approximately 11,000 full-time high school students in 31 occupational careers with 12 career clusters as defined by the National Association of Career Technical Education Consortium. All CTEX students receive a dual curricular career and college-ready high school education and graduate with a Connecticut high school diploma, CTE certificate in their field of study, and multiple stackable credentials giving them the competitive edge. These credentials include, but are not limited to state occupational licensure, national technical skill competency certifications, and industry-recognized credentialing. Graduates of CTEX are empowered to pursue post-secondary educational opportunities and training at four-year higher education institutions, two-year community college programs, or two-year occupational certificate programs, pursue apprenticeships, or enter the global workforce. Many of these young workers gain employment in the construction or manufacturing fields. The CTEX offers sustainable architecture, carpentry, electrical, heating, venting, ventilation and air conditioning, masonry, plumbing and heating, and cooling. And of course, those are the construction trades and automated manufacturing technology, mechanical design and engineering technology, mechatronics, aka robotics, precision machining technology, and welding and metal fabrication for manufacturing. These trades offer young workers rewarding careers and above average earning potential, but they also come with an inherent workplace hazards. Safety training has always been extremely important to the CTEX. Freshmen spend an entire school day learning about health and safety hazards associated with trade and technology offerings prior to commencing the trade exploratory program. So all freshmen will spend two days in the shops or technologies that each school offers, and then they will choose their top three and move to spend four days in those top three, and then of course continue or make their final selection as to where they'd like to be placed for their time at the tech school. This training now incorporates NIOSH's Youth at Work Talking Safety, Introduction to Young Worker Injury Lesson, which of course is the first one, as Lauren alluded to. And then of course from there, facilitating lessons two through six are completed throughout the remainder of the freshman year with special attention placed on lesson six, which is titled Taking Action. And this lesson allows students to role play conversations between an employee and employer and teaches them how to have an appropriate conversation when reporting a workplace hazard. Safety training continues to be the main focal point for instruction throughout freshman year and is covered in depth at the start of sophomore, junior, and senior school years. I will share a personal story. I wish that, of course, the Youth at Work Talking Safety program was around when I was in high school. I attended one of the technical high schools in Connecticut, and at the old age of 15, I decided to join the workforce. And at that time, Connecticut was allowing or passed laws so that 15-year-olds could work in food service. So I started off at Dairy Queen. And the reason I'm sharing this is because how important it is to provide the essential training or complete training for young workers. My manager left to make the bank drop, and he asked me to as simple as clean the floor. He showed me the closet, and of course, where the mop bucket was, and then he left. And so when I went into the closet, I saw that there was ammonia, and then there was bleach. And I said, wow, well, one is gonna clean the floor well, but two combined will really clean this floor up. And yes, I mixed the two together, and very fortunate to actually be here. He came back in time, and of course, led me out of the building, because essentially, of course, what I created was a form of mustard gas. And so that might be my jumping point in wanting to get into health and safety. But again, the reason I share that quick story is just because just how vital it is to, of course, ensure that young workers, all workers, especially young workers, have the appropriate safety training. So this brings me to the origin of the partnership between CTEX and International Chemical Workers Union, Center for Worker Health and Safety Education. They are in Cincinnati, Ohio, and one of its consortium partners, which of course is who I'm working for now, which is the American Federation of Teachers. So the CTEX always strives to improve its curriculum and student preparations to ensure students have the best opportunity for job placement upon graduation. The CTEX also offers a work-based learning program for the students to gain employment in their field, starting during their sophomore summer. So of course, sophomore summer, junior year, senior year, they can actually be... One of the things we look for them to do is be working for an employer, not full-time, but part-time. And so we want them to be essentially job-ready and have proper training, not only their skills for the work they're going to do, but of course also how to remain healthy and safe. As a result from working with construction and manufacturing business employers to help locate jobs for the students, the CTEX consultants became aware that many of these potential employers were requesting students to possess an OSHA 10-hour construction industry or general industry safety class completion card prior to gaining employment with their company. Considering the system only had a handful of teachers authorized to teach the OSHA 10-hour safety courses, this requirement led to a search to find a way to comply. Working collaboratively, CTEX management and the Teachers Union, State Vocational Federation of Teachers, leaders, found a way through a grant which could be used to train new OSHA authorized trainers. The National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences grant has been awarded to the International Chemical Workers Union since 1987. Since then, nine consortium partners have been added and AFT is one of those consortium partners. You can see on the screen, of course, I know it's often used in the world of education, but it does take a village. And these are our partners for the OSHA outreach training program that we're offering. Great Lakes OSHA Education Center is our OSHA training institute. So that's where we, of course, able to get the completion cards and, of course, file all of our paperwork. I mentioned CTEX. Of course, you see in the lower middle is the emblem for the ICWC. And then, of course, AFT, and then the local that represents SBFT, that represents all of the technical high school teachers and staff at CTEX. Yep, that's me working. There's the carpentry shop. And, of course, you have some students. And so this leads me to the start of my journey with the program, which began during the 2010-2011 school year. I was working as a full-time carpentry instructor at Wyndham Tech, and I received an email to attend an upcoming construction industry course or courses offered during the summer to become an OSHA authorized trainer. Considering the recent downturn in America's economy and the number of new jobs available compared to the number of applicants, I thought this would be a great opportunity to help my students earn a nationally recognized safety completion card to bolster their resume. There were only 20 seats available, so I quickly registered for the course. The first OSHA number 510 course was held in July for four days and allowed me to become familiar with OSHA's mission and purpose and construction industry health and safety subparts and standards. The second OSHA 500 course was held in August for five days and allowed me time to develop and practice presenting lessons relating to construction industry health and safety standards to suit the needs of my students. And I know, I'll just back out for a second. I know Lauren mentioned, you know, the importance of being able to train young workers, in this case, high school students in person. I understand sometimes it's, well, certainly the past few years that has not been a possibility, but what I've seen is that, of course, they retain the information certainly much better than, of course, sitting in front of the screen. And the other part, the reason I mentioned that is, of course, we have, as the teacher that's working with the students on a daily basis, we can really cater the curriculum to their needs instead of just a general overview. Trainers from ICWC facilitated both classes while a member of the AFT Health, Safety and Wellbeing Department observed and answered any questions from instructors participating in the courses. The instructors from ICWC were very knowledgeable and I felt the time invested was well spent. As a group of construction trade instructors with many years of experience, we all left the training either learning something new or relearning something forgotten. And of course, everyone completed the two courses. I see the same thing. I'm now in a role that I'm really the instructor trainer and I'm working with teachers to go through these, complete these two courses. I sometimes see it actually in the body language. We talk about certain safety and health standards and I see the sinking feeling and then reveal that not because they are doing anything, they shouldn't, but just don't have the training or the information themselves that, oh, I just realized that the electrical is not in compliance. I don't have proper ventilation. There's a number of things that need to be fixed, resolved at my own workspace. And so, which is a wonderful side effect for the training in that they will end up getting their workspace, again, their shop, if you will, to comply with standards. And really what they are doing when they return, for many of them, they'll actually perform an assessment of their workshop with the students, find hazards and then eliminate them. And really, as far as that teacher-student relationship, modeling appropriate behavior is so key and really showing the students that they value health and safety for their students and themselves. So the first piece of the puzzle was complete. And of course, we have the NIEHS grant that provided funding for the 20 construction trade instructors to become OSHA authorized construction industry trainers to teach OSHA 10 and 30 hour safety classes to the students. The next piece of the puzzle was the cooperation the union received from CTEX management to purchase training resources, add the coursework to the curriculum, allot time for trainers to complete class paperwork and pay for OSHA 10 hour safety completion cards for the students. And so the teachers found the value, management found the value in this, and they helped us to ensure that this program remains successful. So I've had the opportunity to teach OSHA safety class to adults as well as students. While researching workplace fatalities and injury statistics, I couldn't help but notice that young workers are more at risk than adult workers. My personal belief is this stems from three main reasons. First, many young people have a sense that they are invincible and are unable to be severely hurt or killed, which leads them to taking unnecessary risk at the workplace. Of course, to go back to research, of course, research shows that the decision-making part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex does not fully form till the mid twenties. So of course that also adds into it. Second, they have very little real world experience and lack knowledge about potential hazards they could encounter in these inherently hazardous jobs. Third, it's usually their first real job. They do whatever the employer asks for fear that if they don't, they will lose their job. These young workers do not understand their right to a safe and healthy work environment or who to contact if they fear for their health and safety. Quick example, recently in Baltimore, a young man, early twenties, one of his first days on the job, he was in a trench that was at least 12 feet deep. He took a selfie of himself in that trench smiling and apparently did not have the training that he deserves because there was no protection in that trench. And at any moment that trench could have collapsed. And that's just a real world example that if you don't know, then you can't help yourself. So it just goes back to the importance of course of offering this training. The OSHA 10 hour safety class addresses all these concerns. Classmates shared stories from family and friends, pictures, videos that offer real insight to what happens to real people when they do not follow safety procedures or when employers do not provide training in safe work sites. And the OSHA 10 hour safety class is designed to help students practice safety training no matter their age. While in class, OSHA trainers have the ability to use props and hands-on activities, case studies, which allows students to practice with actual equipment, right? Many of their students are tactile, right? It's hands-on, visual learners, and they really develop that muscle memory The intro to OSHA module is dedicated to explaining how OSHA came to be, what its current role is, and how it can be used as an asset for both employees and employers. I'm bringing you right up to 2023, and I'm honored to announce this program offered its 13th set of OSHA trainer courses this school year. We have 10 construction industry and three general industry groups. This year marked the first time three trainer classes required update courses. Once you become an authorized trainer, every four years you come back for a refresher. The CTEX slash SVFT currently has 80 OSHA authorized construction industry trainers and 17 OSHA authorized general industry trainers. Altogether, we've trained over 8,800 students in this time. So my current role as an OSHA authorized construction and general industry instructor trainer and American Federation of Teachers staff members allows me to coordinate and teach the annual courses. CTEX consultants and I work collaboratively during the school year to recruit instructors and answer any questions instructors may have as to what to expect during the coursework and what is required for prior safety experience to qualify to become an OSHA authorized trainer. I also have my colleague, Amy Baruth from AFT and Keith Wrightson from AFT and they co-facilitate the courses with me. In Connecticut, we have one of the teachers who has moved to the position. He is still teaching full-time as an electrical teacher or in the electrical department as a teacher, but he works and also helps out with the courses as well to have someone really in-house. Together, we have built a self-sustaining program with the sole purpose of educating America's next generation of workers to be aware of workplace hazards, understanding their rights and responsibilities, their employers' responsibilities and take action when necessary. The reason you see the slide in front of you is this program is also successful in Chicago, there's the Red Star, New York City and in collaboration with NIOSH, we've completed two healthcare specific OSHA general industry sets of trainer courses with teachers from Miami. Quick thing I'll point out, if you are seeing the, that is real, that there are 7.9 million state and local employees lacking OSHA coverage. That is because they have not adopted a state plan. So all states, of course, have coverage for private employees, but when you're a public employee, say municipality or work for the state, the states that you see in the darker shade, right? Let's say it's a tan, they do not. And that reflects when you look at data each year from the number of injuries, illnesses and fatalities at work. In conclusion, my hope is that this collaborative model of OSHA training for instructors and young workers in high school entering the workforce will be duplicated across the country. I do realize that as with all initiatives, this will require additional funding, more OSHA trainers and new partnerships, but I firmly believe the OSHA 10 hour safety course is a basic life skill and should be a central part of the curriculum, especially for students entering the construction and manufacturing fields. In 2023, with so many safety protocols and procedures in place, young workers should not have to risk injury or death due to lack of training to earn a living. And that concludes. As with Lauren, look forward to answering any questions and I'll turn it over to Molly. Thank you so much, Lauren and Brian for those wonderful presentations. It looks like we have about six minutes for questions. It looks like we have some Q&A. It looks like Crystal asked, is there 54 versions in different languages? Yeah, that's a great question. So it's 54 versions for all 50 states and then we have the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and a couple others. The only other language that talking safety is currently available in is Spanish. And I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that. So thank you, that was a good question. It looks like another question, how can I access 645 minute lessons customized for each? I'm sorry, that one disappeared before I could finish reading it. Oh, that's okay. So Molly, are the slides gonna be available to people? Yes. Okay, so on my slide nine, which is probably a slide 14 or 15, the talking safety slide in my presentation, there is a hyperlink that will take you to the homepage for talking safety. I also put a QR code at the top that will also take you to the homepage for talking safety. In the meantime, you can also just Google NIOSH talking safety and you should be able to find the website pretty easily and all 54 versions of the curriculum are available online. Great, thank you. It looks like this next one might be for Brian. When thinking about young workers, does the curriculum include discussions about how to advocate for themselves and their safety? That could be an issue for a new or contingent workers as well. Actually, who may also feel just, I'm sorry, I think that that was a typo. I would like a disemployed in the workplace. I think Gary just put disempowered. Yeah, disempowered in the workplace. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to hear anything Brian has to add, but one of the modules, the last module of talking safety, and I think Brian had briefly mentioned this, it's called taking action, but it's all about learning how to communicate about workplace health and safety issues and concerns. And there's a similar module that is in the new curriculum that we're developing as well. And in that lesson, we not only have a discussion about why would a worker not wanna speak up about safety and health issues, what would keep them from speaking up and what are some ways to overcome those barriers, but there's also a role play activity that gives students an opportunity to actually practice having those conversations and giving each other feedback on those role plays. So that's definitely something that we think is really, really essential. So Brian, if you wanna add anything. Of course, I agree with you on that for the youth at work talking safety. And then when we jump into the OSHA 10 hour safety class in the intro to OSHA, it is also repeated or shared but as far as when we're talking about what are the rights for, of course, not only just young workers, but all workers, and then how to, let's say, how to file a complaint, but do we start there or do we talk, we have that appropriate conversation with the employer prior to, it's really how the process works. We don't jump right to calling. I mean, you can call 1-800-321-OSHA, but we really get into what's the appropriate way or if you're in a unionized shop, of course, reach out to your building rep. So yeah, it does get repeated, which is necessary, right, for learning. I see the next one is, I would, from Crystal, thank you, does the certificate expire? And so the students receive, so it doesn't have to be students, but anyone that completes an OSHA 10 hour or 30 hour class receives a completion card. That's a federal card that does not expire. Sometimes the, what ends up happening in a few states, the Department of Labor in that state has special provisions that you have to re-up or retake a 10 hour class every five years. But again, the completion card they receive, that is, there is no expiration on that. Thank you, Brian. It looks like there's one more question. Is this available for people over 25? Yeah, I'll jump in for the curricula I talked about. So I apologize if I wasn't clear, but the talking safety curriculum is really tailored for younger people, but the content, a majority of the content in talking safety is really relevant for any age worker. The material that is specific for younger people is really the child safety laws, but a lot of the basics about workplace health and safety would be applicable across workers of any age. And then the new safety skills at work curriculum that we're developing is actually for really any age worker. And we focus just on the federal labor laws that don't vary by state. And so that one is really meant for, to be applicable for any age. And the OSHA 10 is for any age as well. Yeah, I'll jump in. I know we're running, I'll just say that, yes, absolutely. Of course, all ages and research shows that, so not only young workers disproportionately injured, but also when we get into our 40s, there's more injuries and because we become complacent and sort of lose respect for the work. And we've been doing it so long that we don't take the same, our attitude changes. And unfortunately there's shown to be additional injuries, illnesses because of that. Thank you. Great, and with that, it looks like we are out of time. Thank you again, Lauren and Brian for agreeing to be a part of this webinar and thank you to everyone who has attended this. Have a great day, everyone.