The U.S. Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration recognize the importance of safety for this country’s youth workers. As a result of the staggering statistics and the far-too-frequent tales of workplace tragedy to youth and their families, the Texas Engineering Extension Service answered the call to action and set out to develop and deliver occupational safety and health training to youth workers and those who educate and employ them.

The Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) is an agency of the Texas A&M University System. As one of the largest providers of workforce training in the country, training youth workers was well within our scope of expertise. TEEX also holds the status of being one of the largest Education Centers for the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). As such, we knew it was our responsibility to create a training program that would aid this country’s efforts to reduce the workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities suffered by youth workers.

In the fall of 2003, TEEX and K2Share successfully launched the CareerSafe Online Safety Awareness Training Course – a web-based, interactive, youth-to-youth (Y2Y) designed course that conveys the fundamental safety knowledge every student should know before entering the workforce. Completion of the online course earns each student an CareerSafe Online wallet card and, more importantly, a safety mindset that will serve them throughout their lives whether at school, at home, or at work.

Given that school budgets are often already stretched, we sought to make this program as affordable as possible. We priced it a $12 per student for one year of access to the training. That is only $1 per month, less than 4¢ per day, for the safety training that could save a life or prevent an injury.

Once the online course was developed, the next challenge was to get the word out to schools so the CareerSafe program could be integrated into the curriculum of high schools and colleges across the country. For help with this, we started by forming an alliance with SkillsUSA, a national organization serving more than 264,000 high school students, college students, and professional members enrolled in training programs for technical, skilled, and service occupations. Since then, the CareerSafe movement has gained support from other organizations and corporations devoted to the safety of youth workers. Together we are actively helping protect more youth workers across the United States.

Yet we have only begun. Your support could make a big difference. To learn more about how you can get involved in the efforts of the CareerSafe program to improve workplace safety for youth, click Get Involved.