Jeff Colbourne
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 18/98) - Since 1994, more than 1,710 young people have been injured on the job in the NWT.

To combat this problem and perhaps reduce the number of injuries to youth in the future, the WCB is storming classrooms across the NWT this September.

"You can never learn safe working practices too early," says Lynn Stear, program development and occupational hygiene specialist with the Workers' Compensation Board.

That is why she has developed and enhanced a new and improved "Safety and the Young Worker Students Manual," which is being offered as a credit course in high schools in the North.

"It covers the basics. If students work through it they will have an understanding of the concepts," said Stear.

The 25-hour course, directed at a Grade 7-8 reading level, is divided up into 20 lessons dealing with a number of topics including an introduction to workplace hazardous materials information system (WHMIS), noise in the workplace, hypothermia and heat stress and kitchen safety and hand injuries.

"The whole manual, is aimed at increasing their awareness of safety issues. That is the focus of the program, safety and the young worker," she said.

The program also helps student gain awareness of safety legislation, the role WCB plays in the NWT and it helps to prepare students for their first job.

An extensive checklist of resources go with this program. WCB sends one teacher's manual and a box of student manuals to each interested school along with several instructional videos.

So far, schools in Hay River and Yellowknife are teaching the program to students.

While on display at the trade show this past weekend in Yellowknife, WCB was approached by a number of teachers wanting the course for their grades 7, 8 and 9 classes.

Stear said the earlier we get to students the better.

"You hear all the slogans, `safety is an attitude and safety is a way to do things' but sometimes I stop and say to myself, do people just repeat these slogans or do they really believe?" she said.

There are a lot of arguments for targeting young people especially high school students, she added.

If students come to be aware of safety, hopefully they will reduce the risk or the greater risk that young people are at for having an accident.

Stear said she would like to see safety treated as a separate course before students go into some school programs like shop class or woodworking.

One of the comments Stear heard at the trade show was that most of the information in the manual was common sense.

But, her argument against that is, if safety is common sense, why are so many experienced workers being injured?