Abstract

Occupational health and safety is a serious concern for Australian young people. Several research studies confirm that young people are at greater risk of work-related injuries and illnesses than older workers. In Australia, young people aged 15 to 19 years are the leading age cohort with the highest rate of workers injured. In response to this complex issue, in 2003 the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) developed a health and safety program, safe@work, for secondary school students undertaking work experience. All work experience students (usually during year 10) must satisfactorily complete DEECD’s safe@work program before going out on work experience. In our qualitative study we found that there is a mismatch between the compulsory age when OHS is introduced in schools and the age when students begin to work part time. As we discovered through the interviews, many students have already been working for a year or more prior to completing their OHS training at school. In this paper we will use the perceptions of the young people interviewed to explore when it is necessary to start OHS education at school. We will also look at the relevance and accessibility of the current teaching in regard to OHS in schools to determine what methods allowed the greatest retention of OHS teaching. Our participants emphasised that a variety of methods were useful when teaching OHS at school and TAFE. From the young peoples perceptions’ we will also discuss how best to integrate OHS teaching into the curriculum through the use of the young peoples’ part time work experiences and the development of hands on resources including role plays scenarios, coping skills and discussion.