"Safety is everyones responsibility"
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This online manual focuses on the importance of workplace safety during work based learning in vocational education within the fields of metal work and construction industry. Our aim is to lift up key considerations for the parties involved in providing students with a safe environment for learning in a company as well as implementing an effective safety training in an educational setting. The manual can be used to provide an orientation or a refresher for mentoring teachers at school and for work mentors at companies. The information provided in this manual has been collected from interviews with employers, vet providers, teachers, work mentors, representatives from organisations involved in topics relating to work safety and from books/articles/legislations connected to work safety in vocational education. This manual focuses on laws and regulations on a European level as well as the laws and regulations in Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, France and Spain (the Basque Country). For those reading this online manual that comes from other European countries than those mentioned above, we want to remind you that each European country have their national legislations that must be followed.
As an employer who provides VET students a learning experience in the form of e.g. work based learning you are legally responsible for providing a safe and healthy workplace to the students. The teachers also have a responsibility in making sure that the work placement is safe and follows exisiting legislations and regulations. The teachers are also responsible for providing the employers and work mentors with the support and guidance they need in order to provide students with safe learning experience.
We are convinced that those employers who have managed to build up a workplace culture that values staff safety as much as student safety will be better engaged, and more likely to experience a positive working environment. Having a culture of safety in your workplace contributes significantly to staff engagement. Your staff will feel more committed to their jobs when they see management demonstrating a genuine commitment to them in return — and specifically to their ongoing safety at work.
A systematic approach to safety ensures that safety practices are embedded in a more sustainable way, and it plays a significant role in creating and maintaining an organizational culture that values staff safety. Working safe becomes thus a norm that every employee will automatically follow.
In order to maintain a high level of safety the three parties involved in work based learning (the student, the work mentor and the mentoring teacher) should focus on the following:
- An explicit commitment to making safety a part of all work undertaken, including the assignment of responsibilities
- Providing training and orientation that includes
- An understanding of their personal roles and responsibilities in relation to safety
- Identification of hazards related to their work
- Procedures for performing tasks
- Opportunities for continuous learning and refresher activities
- Safety monitoring and accountability measures that include
- Indicators of the state of safety at all levels within the organization
- A means of recognizing, reinforcing, and extending positive safety practices
- Tools and methods for identifying and addressing potential safety problems
Mentoring and supervision are two important things when it comes to ensuring students with safe learning experiences. In order to be able to mentor students qualitatively it is important that the work mentor is aware of his/her role and responsibilities. The work mentor must also be able to act as a good role model when it comes to work safety. As a work mentor you are also responsible for managing to provide students with tasks that are connected to the students personal learning plan and listening to students safety concerns.