This document contains two case studies that demonstrate the value of the State team approach, and also describes the experiences and activities of the State teams in the Northeast; the products developed by the teams, and key resources for other States interested in creating their own State teams.

Contents

Disclaimer

Mention of any company or product does not constitute endorsement by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). In addition, citations to Web sites external to NIOSH do not constitute NIOSH endorsement of the sponsoring organizations or their programs or products. Furthermore, NIOSH is not responsible for the content of these Web sites.

Ordering Information

This document is in the public domain and may be freely copied or
reprinted.

To receive documents or other information about occupational safety and health topics, contact NIOSH at

NIOSH
Publications Dissemination
4676 Columbia Parkway
Cincinnati, OH 45226–1998

Telephone: 1–800–35–NIOSH (1–800–356–4674)
Fax: 513–533–8573
pubstaft@cdc.gov

or visit the NIOSH Web site at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh

Acknowledgements

This report describes the Northeast Young Worker Resource Center, a project located at Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), and funded (1998–2001) by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), through award number U60/CCU116091–03. Raymond Sinclair is the NIOSH project officer. At EDC, Christine Miara is the project director and Susan Gallagher the principal investigator. This publication was written by Marc Posner, with graphic design by Ronnie DiComo, both of EDC.

We wish to thank the members of the State teams and community projects upon whose work this publication is based and who provided documents and materials, allowed themselves to be interviewed, and reviewed drafts of the manuscript. Anne Stirnkorb, Vanessa Becks, and Susan Afanuh provided editorial and graphic assistance.

Introduction

Most young people work at some time during high school. Although working can be a positive experience, it also has risks. The Institute of Medicine’s Committee on the Health and Safety Implications of Child Labor reports that 50 percent of youths between ages 15 and 17 work at some time during the course of a year and that 80 percent of students work at least some time during high school. Every year, at least 100,000 of these young people seek treatment in an emergency room for a work-related injury. Every year, at least 70 young people are killed on the job. Young people are injured in the workplace at twice the rate of adult workers. Yet no single agency has the ultimate responsibility for protecting young people from workplace hazards. What is needed is an approach that brings coherence and coordination to this mission.

A State team for young worker safety is a coalition of agencies and organizations whose goal is to protect the safety and health of young people in the workplace. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a team as “a group organized to work together.” This definition goes to the heart of the State team approach. A State team is not a committee, task force, or blue ribbon panel. State teams do not exist to make recommendations, issue reports, share information, or discuss issues—although they can do all of these. State teams exist to work on concrete projects that protect young people from injuries in the workplace. Over the past 5 years, several of the States in the Northeastern part of the United States have successfully used the State team approach to improve their capacity to protect young workers.

History of Young Worker State Teams in the Northeast

The efforts described in this publication build on the work of three community projects funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in 1995:

• The Labor Occupational Safety and Health (LOSH) Program at the University of California at Los Angeles worked with the schools in that city.
  
  
• The Labor Occupational Health Program (LOHP) at University of California at Berkeley implemented a program in nearby Oakland, California.
  
  
• The Massachusetts Department of Public Health, working with Education Development Center (EDC), undertook a project in Brockton, Massachusetts.
  
  
• For the next 3 years, these projects developed curricula for high school students, materials for employers and parents, strategies for providing effective training, and other resources and strategies. The grantees piloted these materials and strategies in the three communities.
  
  Promoting Safe Work for Young Workers, a publication available from NIOSH, contains a detailed description of these projects.
  
  In 1998, the Educational Development Center (EDC) invited staff from departments of health, education, and labor in the six New England States, New York, and New Jersey, along with representatives from NIOSH, to a meeting on how the experiences of the three pilot projects could benefit young workers in the Northeast. Participants explored how agencies and organizations could work together to prevent injuries to teen workers. It became apparent that although each agency played an important role in preventing these injuries, no single agency had a clear responsibility to address all aspects of young worker safety. By the end of the day, teams from each State had begun outlining plans for coordinated efforts to prevent injuries to young workers.

Northeast Young Worker Resource Center

NIOSH staff attending the meeting at EDC recognized that the State teams presented an important way of building State capacity to protect young workers. Thus, NIOSH funded the creation of the Northeast Young Worker Resource Center (NYWRC) at EDC. The purpose of the NYWRC was to facilitate the development and ongoing work of the State teams with technical assistance and resources, and thus to bring the experience of the three pilot projects to a broader audience. The assistance and resources provided by the NYWRC to the State teams and their community projects included the following:

• An annual training meeting
  
  
• Training in the use of young worker safety curricula for teachers, job placement professionals, and State agency staff
  
  
• Periodic resource mailings, which included materials developed by State teams
  
  
• Adaptations of two occupational safety and health curricula for high school students to reflect the data, child labor laws, and resources of individual States
  
  
• Adaptations of brochures originally created for Massachusetts parents, employers, health care providers, and teens to reflect the data, child labor laws, and resources of individual States
  
  
• Technical assistance through site visits, telephone conversations, and e-mail
  
  
• A regional teen occupational safety electronic discussion list
  
  
• Support for the Northeast Young Worker Network, the State teams’ membership organization

Overview

Working Together for Safety: A State Team Approach to Preventing Occupational Injuries to Young People was developed by EDC with funding from NIOSH. It begins with two case studies that demonstrate the value of the State team approach. The remainder of the document describes the experiences and activities of the State teams in the Northeast; the products developed by the teams for teens, parents, employers, school staff, health care providers, and others who can help protect young people from injury on the job; and key resources for other States interested in creating their own State teams.

This publication reflects the hard work of a large number of dedicated people. We hope you will take advantage of their efforts and experience by using the strategies and activities described in these pages to prevent injuries to working youth in your State.

Note: No Federal funds were used to support or participate in any of the advocacy or legislative activities in any of the States.