Advocates hit the road for Vic Health and Safety Month

Victorian business owners, managers and workers will have the opportunity to hear from workplace safety experts and industry leaders during WorkSafe Victoria’s Health and Safety Month. During October — which is National Safe Work Month — WorkSafe Victoria’s band of safety advocates will visit 22 locations across the state, addressing workplace mental health, safety for young workers, and proper storage and handling of dangerous goods. Occupational health and safety for small business, occupational violence and aggression in health care, and manual handling hazards will also be covered in the free seminars, according to WorkSafe Victoria.

The first event — a business leaders’ breakfast — will land in Zinc on 2 October, with talks from Victorian Parliamentary Secretary for Workplace Safety Natalie Hutchins and Arts Centre CEO Claire Spencer. WorkSafe Victoria said Spencer has helped address mental health and suicide in the performing arts sector, setting up the Arts Wellbeing Collective. She will share her insights on how to create positive workplaces in a bid to eliminate issues such as stress, anxiety and bullying. Tradies’ breakfasts will head a number of regional events, covering issues affecting the construction industry, such as silicosis, electrical safety, preventing falls from height and trench safety.

On 30 October, author and broadcaster Catherine McGregor will share her experiences with workplace mental health, overcoming adversity and technology’s impact on workplaces and workplace safety at the Melbourne Health and Safety Conference. McGregor served in the armed forces for more than 30 years and is touted by WorkSafe Victoria as “Australia’s most prominent transgendered woman”.

Newly named health and safety ambassador Anjali Rao will also be attending the conference, hosting a panel on emerging safety challenges and how employers can foster a “positive, healthy and safe” workplace. Having worked in high-pressure, 24-hour news environments, covering disasters such as the deadly Asian tsunami, Haiti earthquake and 9/11 terrorist attack, the award-winning journalist and former CNN anchor said she knows “first-hand the toll work can take on health, especially mental wellbeing”. She will also be sharing her experiences at events across the state.

Media commentator and Geelong Football Club triple premiership star Cameron Ling will be returning for his fourth year as WorkSafe Victoria’s ambassador, MCing events in Melbourne and Ballarat. The month will close with the WorkSafe Awards on 31 October.

WorkSafe Chief Executive Clare Amies said the month is an opportunity for Victorian business, employers and workers to refocus on health and safety. “In the next 10 years it is estimated there will be more than 3.8 million workers in Victoria, so it’s essential that we come up with new ways to improve health and wellbeing and make workplaces safer,” Amies said. “WorkSafe Health and Safety Month brings together industry experts, inspiring motivational speakers, businesses and the community to focus on occupational health and safety, and I urge employers and workers around Victoria to consider going along to the event near them.”

Events will also take place in Port Fairy and Warrnambool (3 October), Colac (4 October), Lynbrook (6 October), Geelong (8, 16, 22 October), Ballarat (9 October), Dandenong (9, 24 October), Horsham (10 October), Bendigo (11 October), Mildura (15 October), Echuca (16 October), Werribee (17 October), Shepparton (17 October), Inverloch (18 October) Traralgon (21 October), Bairnsdale (22 October), Wangaratta (24 October) and Albury Wodonga (31 October).

More information on Health and Safety Month can be found via WorkSafe Victoria’s website.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/bennymarty