RoSPA Press Office : Press Release

October 19, 2006
ONLINE TOOL RELAUNCHED FOR YOUNG WORKER CAMPAIGN

A website promoting the safety of young workers has been revamped to coincide with this year’s European Week for Safety and Health at Work.

RoSPA’s updated site – www.youngworker.co.uk - goes “live” today. It provides a useful online resource for employers (particularly those with fewer than 200 employees), work experience organisers and young people aged 14-25 who are involved in work experience or starting work for the first time. Other people interested in the health, safety and welfare of young people, including parents and guardians, might also find the site helpful.

New content includes regularly updated links to young worker case studies, a facility enabling young people to submit their work experience stories, links to RoSPA products and resources related to work experience, and a tool enabling work experience organisers to test their skills and knowledge.

Safe Start – the European Week for Safety and Health at Work, run by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work next week (October 23-27) - is dedicated to the occupational wellbeing of young people.

Figures published in Hazards magazine in August showed that more than 4,000 16-24-year-olds are seriously injured at work every year, 12 are killed and 15,000 are injured badly enough to be forced off work for more than three days.

Roger Bibbings, RoSPA Occupational Safety Adviser, said: “Accidents are a major cause of death and injury to our population and the greatest single threat to life for children and young people. A lack of experience together with risk-taking behaviour, especially during the teenage and young adult years, can be a lethal combination - particularly when they occur in the environments of road or workplace.

“Figures show that a young worker, aged between 16 and 24, is seriously injured every 40 minutes in the UK and one young person is killed at work each month. We hope our ‘new look’ website will help cut these tragedies by increasing interest in health and safety among the young and providing a valuable resource for employers.”

Supervisors have a key role to play in establishing safe working practices among their young workers and RoSPA runs a training course for those responsible for managing young people at work. The Society also offers organisation-specific risk awareness courses for young workers themselves and consultancy services. Young-worker safety will also be taken into consideration as part of the 2007 RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Awards, which will be launched next month.

Visit www.hse.gov.uk/campaigns/euroweek for more information on Safe Start.