Tag Archives: safe environment

General Safety Issues

CLOSE PROTECTION COURSES AND WHY THEY ARE ESSENTIAL TO YOUR BUSINESS (GUEST POST)

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Close protection courses are available for the protection of the client, to protect as required by the client and for the protection of the security employee themselves. Knowledge and understanding is essential for safety. 

If you are in the security business or your job involves keeping people or things secure; you will be aware of the benefits of professional training. You may require training for yourself or your employees may need to have certain levels of training for the business. Having the right training can ensure that employees are safe and have the knowledge and understanding they need in any eventuality that comes their way.

You will find a lot of companies that offer training and education that those in the security industry will need. Finding the best provider is extremely important to ensure that you get the best training and find the most suited to your company. Business owners will be aware of the training they require for their employees. There are many cheap training courses available now as close protection courses become more widely available and in demand by many companies.

Close protection courses provide adequate knowledge so the person training can ensure a safe environment for the company or client. They also educate on carrying out risk assessments ensuring they can be done quickly and safely. It’s not always the first thing considered, but these courses are becoming more of a necessity today. Businesses require this kind of training and the options are there. Businesses need to ensure that, where protection is required; it is done properly. If the person responsible is given the best training available it will increase their knowledge helping them do the job to the best of their ability.

The close protection courses available allow individuals to familiarise potential hostile environments. This is important as they may come across a hostile situation in their career and with the right training can deal with it to the best of their ability. Finding the right provider is important to ensure you receive the best quality training at the right price. As we are talking about safety; finding the right provider is essential. You want to find a company that will offer the training at an affordable price, but also offers good quality training. Taking the time to research online and check out what’s available can save you money and ensure you get the best using the internet to research the competition.

The right training from close protection courses enables the security employee to be more aware of what is going on and how to deal with the situation they are faced with. The training can be challenging, but they are designed to ensure the safety of individuals and give them the ability to deal with the situation in the best possible way. Whatever the job role the individual is employed to do, close protection training ensures they can carry it out using their knowledge and understanding and to ensure they carry out the job properly. The training enables the employee to deal with situations they are faced with.

They enable the person to analyse the situation so they can take the required actions quickly and deal with the situation effectively. The training enables the security employee to be more aware of what it going on and how to communicate and deal with a situation. Finding the right provider is important, especially when it comes to safety. Research online can be all it takes to find the provider who can offer affordability and quality training. You cannot compromise when it comes to security as safety is very important. 

Author Bio

Rachel is a freelance writer based in Cheshire. Rachel has researched close protection courses with the help of a specialist provider online. In her spare time; Rachel enjoys spending time with her niece and classic computer games.

 

General Safety Issues

HOW TO MAKE YOUR HOME SAFE FOR A DEPRESSED TEEN (GUEST POST)

 Sent by Joyce DelRosario

There are some specific ways you can make your home safe for a depressed teen. This is a difficult illness, but it can be managed. Develop a treatment plan, eliminate or secure alcohol and medications, and create a positive environment. 

• Devise a Plan of Treatment 

You need to have a talk with your teen and his/her doctor. Generally speaking, depressed teens respond well to a combination of talk therapy and antidepressant medications. If the depression is severe, it might be necessary for the teen to remain at a hospital for treatment. Aside from having a treatment plan, you also need to ensure that your home is safe for a depressed teen. 

• Secure or Eliminate Alcohol 

If you have alcohol in the house, it must be either secured or removed. Teens suffering from depression will often try to self-medicate. This can lead to drinking if the alcohol is easily available. Secure it by keeping alcohol in a locked cabinet. Make sure the key is on you at all times, even if you are home. Teens can be very clever, even if you think the key is hidden well, they will probably be able to find it. The other option is simply to remove all alcohol. 

• Remove Guns 

It is best to not have any firearms in the house. Your teen has a mental condition that is impairing the way he or she thinks. Combine that with a natural impulsivity and inability to predict the consequences of their actions all teens struggle with, having guns in the home is simply not worth the risk. If you must have firearms, keep them locked in a secure safe and keep the key on you at all times. 

• Secure All Prescription Drugs

 As mentioned before, depressed teens will often self-medicate. Prevent this by keeping your prescriptions locked away. Some commonly abused prescription drugs are 

  • 1.  Amytal
  • 2.  Ativan
  • 3.  Xanax
  • 4.  Ambien
  • 5.  Lunesta
  • 6.  Valium
  • 7.  Adderall
  • 8.  Vicodin
  • 9.  OxyContin 

Even over the counter drugs can be abused, such as cough medicine, asthma inhalers, and allergy medicine. Teen girls with depression and an eating disorder may also abuse laxatives.  Be very aware of your medications. If large amounts are missing, you will need to keep over the counter medications secured as well prescription drugs. 

•  Maintain a Positive Environment 

Follow the suggestions made by your therapist and doctor. Be supportive of your teen by providing him or her with a positive environment that is free of judgment. Gently encourage them to do things they enjoy and talk to them. Keeping an open dialog going with your teen is important. He or she needs to feel safe and comfortable talking with you. Providing him or her with a stable routine is also helpful. 

Keep your home safe by following  these steps. Create a solid treatment plan with your doctor and therapist. Provide safety by securing all firearms and medications. Finally, make sure your teen has a safe and comfortable home.

Kaylee Wilson is a proud single mom and a professional writer. She currently contributes at Help Your Teen Now. Help Your Teen Now brings together a vast collection of resources that will help families find their bearings and help them with managing depressed teens.

Note: I received a list of tragic events that cost many lives – every one of the perpetrators on that list were on some sort of prescription drug for depression, and/or a combination of drugs.  Parents, know what your kids are abusing and pay attention to personality changes.   pb 

 

General Safety Issues, Head Protection

IN DEFENSE OF WORKPLACE SAFETY THROUGH BETTER TRAINING (GUEST POST)

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By Kyle O’Brien

 Workplace safety is a paramount issue with any business.  Whether you’re a meat-packing business or a coffee shop, safety concerns abound.  Thus, having your entire staff up to speed with sufficient training on ways to prevent accidents, as trivial as one tutorial may seem, is something that should go beyond the basic written words inside the employee handbook.  That’s not to say a handbook is useless.  Far from it.  It’s how management discerns workplace safety, with how certain equipment is to be handled, what protective layers should be issued and worn at all times…the list should, and does go on.   

From obtaining better training videos to ensuring each and every employee has a firm grasp of what’s been shown, there are numerous points to follow through with regards to safety training.  

Understanding The Costs of Improper Training 

Before you begin to assess your company’s workplace safety policies and training, I’ll share one example of how some oversights in the electrical industry – specifically towards improper maintenance of electrical systems – can cost businesses in more ways than fines.  A Siemens report back in 2010 uncovered a list of violations of electrical maintenance with certain buildings.  Spanning 25 facilities, OSHA handed out more than $5 million in fines to employers who failed to train their employees on servicing electrical systems in the building.  Some of the violations were a result of not having the right tools.  More major violations were given to not putting up proper warning signs for specific areas, thus potentially endangering employees to shock, electrocution and arc flash. 

Putting aside the monetary issues, the heart of the matter is the safety of employees and all who would walk around the “hazard zones”.  The report stated that every workday, arc-flash incidents had hospitalized five to seven workers at those buildings in the U.S.  Around 30,000 arc-flash incidents in total, with around 7,000 of those incidents involving burn injuries.  And that’s just with regards to a specific industry.  Employers who don’t first research the risks/dangers of prior incidents are setting themselves up to repeat them.   

Creating Easier Ways To Engage Employees 

Safety training, computer training, compliance training — there’s more than enough areas for a business to cover with their employees.  Some choose to spend half a day, maybe less than that, sequestering entire departments for a training seminar.  There will be packets, referendums, company policies on what to do in an event.  And not to say that employees are prone to be disinterested throughout, well, there’s a good chance streamlined, succinct methods will fare better with how each employee digests the information. 

It’s why better-developed training videos can command more eyes and ears.  Many older training videos of the 1980’s were attempts to add humor and a storyline to someone operating the grill at a fast food restaurant.  The sad reality was that it was grainy, had cacophonous background music and took too long to define instructions and safety measures.  If that same effort was applied to a training video on how to operate a crane on a job site, you’d most likely have confused employees who’d just rather settle for a succinct video displaying the key statistics of operating with caution. 

Creating a video that has a clear and direct narrator displaying stats like the number of injuries reported on common job sites and whether they’ve worsened or gotten better, how certain “hot spots” of the site should be littered with warning signs, Safety hardhat requirements and ways to be better aware of one’s surroundings and other key points, your training segments would go much further to making safety measures more tangible to employees. 

Have Q & A Sessions After Each Video 

Once you’ve wrapped up the safety training video or session, the best way to make every safety measure mentioned stick is to have an immediate Q & A.  While it might be hard to get employees to chat after sitting through a lengthy training video (which is why you should cap your videos to shorter time limits, or break up meatier safety lessons into segments), it’s still important to at least entertain questions.  Doesn’t matter how obscure a question could be, no stone should be left unturned when it comes to workplace precautions.   

And Q & A’s should be a continual process, because you can’t expect every employee to reach expert levels once they leave the room.  Maybe it means having managers around the first time a chef starts to work with a new grill, or have someone supervising employees first go-around with heavy machinery types such as the Knuckleboom Loader, Feller Bunchers, Pipelayers and other rather complex and powerful equipment?   

Final Thoughts 

The main thing is your initiative to stay on top of important safety concerns with the workplace and that you and your entire organization understand that accidents happen every day, in every workplace across the country.  But it’s how you lessen the numbers through awareness, through training videos and whether they’ll be a continual process in education, through warning signs being posted in key spots around the workplace or job site, and most important, through a passion to stay on top of creating as safe an environment as possible. 

Author Bio:  Kyle is a frequent blogger covering the business industry on a range of topics from employee safety, business leadership, motivation practices and other themes.  He is a consultant for an eLearning company, ej4, which helps create informative and innovative training videos and business book summaries to help further increase employee knowledge of the workplace.