LOcHER concept gives new perspectives.....

As a follow on to my previous article which asked “What is normal anyway?”,

How can we use the LOcHER project concept to give a new perspective and help develop a whole new normal?

Normal in Health & Safety is constantly evolving and changing…….

Apart from the overarching goal of keeping everyone safe and healthy whilst at work, “what is normal?” in the world of work and Health and Safety.

Lets consider the following examples:

How long have people been falling from height?

The answer is that people have been falling from height since the very first day that activities were undertaken at height.

Over time, a series of control measures have been developed and introduced to reduce the risk of people falling from height.

The ‘norm’ has changed from having very little or no controls at all, to using basic ladders and access equipment to where we are now, we have a huge variety of access equipment, scaffolds, access towers, edge protection, harnesses, lanyards and so much more.

Despite all of this progress and numerous control measures introduced, workers are still dying or suffering injuries as a result of falling from height every year.

Would we class this as being ‘normal?’

What about asbestos?

For many years, asbestos was seen as a wonder product, used in hundreds of applications at work, at home and even in cars, it was everywhere, it was ‘normal’ to use Asbestos Containing Materials (ACMs) wherever we could.

Even though concerns had been raised from a very early stage in its use, over time, the health effects were researched and more widely recognised and we began to understand how destructive the fibres could be to our health and in 1999, the use of asbestos and asbestos containing materials (ACMs) was totally banned in the UK.

Using replacement non-asbestos containing products became the new ‘norm’ but as we all know, this ban hasn’t totally taken away the risk of exposure as ACMs remain in many buildings constructed before the year 2000.

The ‘norm’ has evolved and changed from “let us use the product wherever and whenever we can” to the current process that “we presume that any pre-2000 buildings in the UK are treated as containing ACMs until an up to date survey provides evidence of the absence of ACMs on the premises”. This is the current ‘norm’ yet, workers are still being exposed to fibres at work every day. As the latency period for illness to appear after exposure to Asbestos fibres is on average 20-30 years, this ‘norm’ needs to be challenged further and we can support this through wider education of the workforce and the wider audience of building owners, landlords, etc.

So, how does this fit in with the LOcHER project concept?

Although the Health and Safety at Works Act 1974 has been in place for over 40 years at the time, and despite the addition of various pieces of legislation over the years, the health of many employees has been affected as a result of various exposures whilst at work.

In 2015, LOcHER project was born out of the question “How do we protect the future health of young people and those who are new to entering the world of work?”

LOcHER is seen as a way to develop a new ‘normal’ in an attempt to reduce the effects of workplace exposures to the future work force whilst also enabling knowledge to be shared across a wide audience using social media streams.

The LOcHER project team realised at the start of the process that the best way to make a difference was to involve the target audience, the young people who we were trying to protect, to get their perspective on how this could be achieved.

The team knew that the existing ‘normal’ style ‘chalk n talk’ and ‘death by PowerPoint’ approach didn’t fully work when teaching Health and Safety topics and that this approach had led many young people (and other employees) to seeing Health and Safety as being boring, over the top and not relevant to the actual job.

We all know that Health and Safety is an integral part of every work activity and that no one deserves to be hurt or made ill as a result of carrying out work activities.

So, LOcHER was born and its impact was immediate.

RESEARCH – PRODUCE – SHARE

This new approach of allowing apprentices and college students to RESEARCH occupational health related issues within their area of work, meant that the young people looked at some of the existing issues with a fresh set of eyes. Groups have worked together to identify the issues, look at the controls (including looking at developing new approaches to delivering the messages around the controls), they were then able to PRODUCE a variety of resources and then SHARE them with their peer groups using social media.

The results are amazing and LOcHER has received accolades from across the globe, groups who have engaged with the LOcHER process have won awards from a number of prestigious organisations such as Safety Groups UK.

The students who get involved in a #LOcHERproject learn so much more than simple health and safety messages. The young people can develop a whole range of work, employability and life skills – communication, team work, problem solving, presentation skills and much more.

The LOcHER approach can be applied to our everyday activities, everywhere and at any time?

Imagine if we asked our young people to look at other ways to manage working at height. What solutions could they develop by looking at it from a different perspective?

So, the final question has to be:

Why wouldn’t you get involved in a #LOcHERproject at your college or workplace to make a difference and produce a new ‘normal’ way of working?

Search #locherproject on social and get in touch, get involved.