The Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) Foundation and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) are entering into a collaborative partnership to protect the safety and health of our nation’s young workers. The signing of a new 5-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) occurred today at NIOSH offices in Washington DC.

(Pictured at right: BCSP Board President Linda Martin, CSP; NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard; and BCSP CEO Dr. Treasa Turnbeaugh, CSP.)

Young workers, who often have limited or no prior work experience and lack safety training, have high rates of job-related injury when compared to their adult co-workers. To address this public health problem, NIOSH and the BCSP Foundation seek to develop and disseminate a comprehensive, online workplace safety and health training. The training will be available to the public free of charge and used in conjunction with high school career development courses, CTE (career technical education), STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) pathways, and apprenticeship programs. The new training will expand on Youth@Work: Talking Safety, a foundational curriculum from NIOSH and its partners for middle school and high school students, and will promote core competencies for workplace safety and health, such as the ability to recognize hazards in a work environment and the best methods for controlling them.

“NIOSH has a long history of collaboration with the BCSP. This new partnership with the BCSP Foundation allows us to extend our work and share a vision for preparing current and future generations of workers with the knowledge and skills they need to contribute to and benefit from safe, healthy and productive workplaces,” said NIOSH Director John Howard, MD.

The partnership between NIOSH and the BCSP Foundation will involve outreach to educators, high school counselors, businesses, labor organizations and trades. NIOSH and the BCSP Foundation will also work together to develop an assessment tool for the online training, analyze student assessment data, and evaluate the effectiveness of the training to increase young workers’ safety competence. The joint activities between NIOSH and the BCSP Foundation may contribute to a downstream reduction in injuries among young workers and help ensure the health and well-being of the emerging workforce. 

More information on young worker safety and health can be found at: www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/youth and www.bcspfoundation.org/youth-safety-institute.

More information on the NIOSH young worker curriculum, Youth@ Work-Talking Safety, can be found at: www.cdc.gov/niosh/talkingsafety.

The BCSP Foundation, working in concert with BCSP, is dedicated to advancing the field through strategic investment in Professional Advancement, Innovation and Research, and the Youth Safety Institute. Learn more at www.bcspfoundation.org.

NIOSH is the federal institute that conducts research and makes recommendations for preventing work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths. For more information about NIOSH visit www.cdc.gov/niosh.

The Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP), headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, is a not-for-profit corporation recognized as a leader in high-quality, accredited