In addition to our e-newsletter the Australian OHS Education Accreditation Board puts out a quick update when there are news items that may be of interest. This Quick Update includes information on making a nomination for the Eric Wigglesworth OHS Education (Research) Award. Get in quick as nominations close on the 30th June. We announce the release of the new chapter for the OHS Body of Knowledge on OHS Risk and Decision-making. There is also information on the early bird registration for the SIA Annual Convention in September and two new publications of interest.

Nominations for the SIA Eric Wigglesworth OHS Education (Research) Award

The Safety Institute of Australia together with the Australian OHS Education Accreditation Board presents annual education awards. The purpose of these awards is to provide an opportunity for students studying occupational health and safety at university level, and demonstrating high levels of achievement and initiative, to be recognised by the Safety Institute of Australia.

One of the awards, the Eric Wigglesworth OHS Education (Research) Award recognises people who have completed a research higher degree (ie. PhD, Professional Doctorate or Masters by Research), in which the research has focused on preventing work-related fatalities, injuries, disease and/or ill-health.

Applicants may be nominated by their university, their peers, OHS professionals or they may self- nominate.

The judging for the Award is based on the criteria of:

• Significant contribution to the OHS body of knowledge
• Potential for application of research outcomes in preventing work-related fatalities, injuries,disease and/or ill-health
• Demonstrated dissemination of research outcomes to relevant parties.

The award is substantial in that the winner receives: a professional Development Fund to the value of $5000; travel and accommodation from home state to the awards presentation; membership of the SIA for one year; and a commemorative medal (and certificate). The educational institution also receives a plaque of recognition.Information on the award and the nomination form is available at https://www.ohseducationaccreditation.org.au/projects-activities/.

To be eligible for the 2015 award the applicant must have completed the academic requirements in the calendar years 2013 or 2014.

Nominations close on the 30th June, 2015. We realise the time line is short so act now if you would like to make a nomination. No late nominations can be accepted.

Any queries regarding the award or nominations should be directed to Pam Pryor at registrar@ohseducationaccreditation.org.au.

OHS Body of Knowledge – New chapter: OHS Risk and decision-making

The first edition of the OHS Body of Knowledge had an excellent chapter on Risk as a concept but, in discussion with a number of OHS professionals, it was determined that we needed to explore what impacted on decisions about risk. While it is generally considered that risk assessments drive risk decision-making we knew that apart from some writing on risk perception and principles of ALARP there did not seem to be any coherent collection of knowledge about risk and decision-making.

About 18 months ago, with the support of Safe Work Australia and the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre (MISHC) at the University of Queensland, we began work on a chapter on OHS risk and decision-making. A workshop with OHS professional and academics identified some of the research around decision-making and also practical issue as seen by OHS professionals. The actual chapter writing progressed with input by Jan Hayes, Chris Bearman and Derek Viner with special thanks to Carmel Bofinger of MISHC who helped pull it all together.

This chapter has been challenging and taken considerable time to develop through to this final stage. The resultant work examines decision-making theory, types of decisions and factors influencing decisions along with risk communication, legal and ethical issues, and limitations of risk assessments. It highlights that humans are not necessarily fully rational in their decision-making processes. The chapter emphasises that an understanding of decision-making processes, combined with effective influencing strategies will assist the OHS professional to more effectively influence decisions about risk. Implications for OHS practice are discussed and a model proposed to guide the OHS professional in developing the knowledge and skills to influence decisions impacting on OHS risk. The chapter begins the task of collating a body of knowledge on risk and decision-making. As multi-disciplinary research about decision-making per se and decision-making about risk is continuing this is the beginning of the discussion.

The chapter can be downloaded at http://www.ohsbok.org.au/download-the-body-of-knowledge/

Safety Institute Annual Conference

15th, 16th 17th September
Melbourne
15th September Eric Wigglesworth Memorial Lecture to be presented by Rosa Carrillo

Rosa Carrillo is an internationally recognized leader in transformational culture change and leadership development in complex environments. She has worked in North America, Central America, South America, Middle East, Central Asia, and India in both NGO, corporate environments. She is president of Carrillo & Associates, Inc., which focuses on leadership development for high hazard industries. She has worked extensively in the field working with the day-to- day problems caused by breakdowns in trust and communication. She is a frequent speaker on the topic of leadership both locally and internationally

Just a few of her articles are:

“The Importance of Relationship and Social Interaction on Safety Performance,” Professional Safety Journal of the Society of Safety Engineers, May 2012
“Complexity and Safety,” Journal of Safety Research, August 2011.

“Positive Safety Culture: How to Create, Lead and Maintain,” Professional Safety Journal of the Society of Safety Engineers, May 2010.

“Leadership Formula: Trust + Credibility x Competence = Results: A Guide to Safety Excellence through Organizational and Personal Transformation.”

“Breaking the Cycle of Mistrust to Build a Positive Safety Culture.”

16th, 17th September – Safety Differently

Safety Differently by name and by nature. This conference is not your normal safety conference with people sharing what they do in their workplace (important as this might be). This conference will push some boundaries with keynote presentations by a number of national and international speakers who will explore themes such as: what have we learnt from 50 years of space travel; challenging to the current safety paradigm and the need for change; and a review of the regulatory environment.

Day 2 presents three streams:

• Safety and the Executive comprising sessions on Governance and Directors, Leadership and theExecutive and Industrial relations
• Safety in Practice with sessions on Theory into Practice, Health and wellbeing at work, Workerscompensation management and Professional development
• Risk engineering covering Safety By Design, Safety Case and Risk and rewards.Attending this conference will give OHS educators, researchers and professionals access to leading edge OHS thinking and practice in a 2-day neatly packaged conference.For information and registration go to www.siasafetyconferences.com.au/melbourne2015 . Early bird registration closes on the 7th July.Please pass this information on to your students and others.

Attending this conference will give OHS educators, researchers and professionals access to leading edge OHS thinking and practice in a 2-day neatly packaged conference.

For information and registration go to www.siasafetyconferences.com.au/melbourne2015 . Early bird registration closes on the 7th July.

Research scholarship

Master of Philosophy – Work Health and Safety (WHS): Measuring Real Time Workplace Breathing Rates through Respirators”

The University of Wollongong is pleased to announce an exciting opportunity via a Safety Equipment Australia scholarship now available for a candidate to complete a Postgraduate Research Degree: Master of Philosophy. The research will focus on evaluation of “Measuring Real Time Workplace Breathing Rates through Respirators” and will include laboratory and industrial field testing of hypotheses. The aim of this research is to inform Australian and international standards, manufacturers and end users of respiratory protection devices of the breathing and metabolic rate of the work of breathing through negative pressure respirators in an industrial setting; and the ramifications on workers of increased metabolic rates.

Information is attached. Interested candidates should apply by Friday 19th June 2015
For further information about this position, email jane_whitelaw@uow.edu.au or contact Jane on: Tel: +61 2 42 215 232

New Books

Safe Design and Construction of Machinery: Regulation, Practice and Performance Elizabeth Bluff, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, $119.95

This book deals with machinery risks and the efficacy of manufacturing firms’ actions to design and construct inherently safer machinery. It blends empirical data, literature and theory drawn from the human factors, health and safety, socio–legal and learning disciplines. The book reveals the highly contextualized nature of safety knowledge and motivational factors, as the principal elements differentiating firm performance, and variously sustaining or impeding effective risk management. The book is potentially of interest to specialists, practitioners, researchers, regulators and policy makers, educators and students in human factors and safety engineering, work and product safety, risk management, regulation and socio–legal studies, sociology of work, standard setting and enforcement, and professional and vocational education. http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472450777 and for a 35% discount quote W14iSH35.

Health and Safety Critical Control Management Internal Council on Mining and Metals

While developed for the mining industry, the new publication A Guide to Good Practice – Health and Safety Critical Control Management by the International Council on Mining and Metals has some interesting principles for many industries. The critical control management (CMM) process is well established and in use in many high-hazard industries. The approach described in this publication is designed to identify and manage acts, objects or systems onsite – the “critical controls” – that need to be in place to either prevent a serious incident occurring or minimize the consequences if a serious incident were to occur. The guide answers a need to ensure that effective controls are always in place. Although the risks are often well-known a lack of sufficient risk-identification and control management can lead to serious injury and fatalities of worker

The publication presents nine steps: ranging from step 1 which helps develop the scope of CCM implementation, through to step 9 which offers guidance on appropriate response and action to be taken when critical controls are underperforming, leading to an incident. Supplementary material to the report includes the CCM journey model and mapping tool which is designed to help organizations assess their maturity and readiness in adopting the process

The guide can be accessed at http://www.icmm.com/publications/health-and-safety-critical-control-management- good-practice-guide

If you would like to include information in the next Update contact Pam Pryor. Information may include: position vacancies, research updates, key references, invitations for collaboration, or anything you think may be interesting to your OHS educator and researcher colleagues.

Pam Pryor Registrar.

 

This update can also be downloaded as a PDF.