The Brief Group and charitable organisation Spinal Cord Injuries Australia (SCIA) have formed an alliance to introduce a “reality-check” dimension to OHS training in the workplace.

The initiative is called Teamsafe. The Program introduces employees to people who have suffered a catastrophic injury in the workplace – they are called Teamsafe Ambassadors.

Teamsafe Ambassadors give employees a workplace injury “reality-check”. They take OHS beyond “policy” and make it emotionally and personally relevant. Their own experience challenges employee perceptions of responsibility for safety, injury causes and costs in human as well as financial terms. In particular, Ambassadors encourage employees to work together as a team to reduce injuries – it’s about keeping an eye out for each other.

The Teamsafe learning experience can be tailored for your workplace to include modules such as “Meet a Teamsafe Ambassador”, “What if (a serious injury happened to you)”, team games of Wheelchair Basketball and the “Day in a Wheelchair” challenge.

The Program’s “real-life” experience approach to OHS development can have a number of positive outcomes in your workplace, including:

• The Teamsafe experience will be fun (good for morale), “eye-opening” and memorable;
• Employees will talk about the experience among themselves – safety & injury prevention will become a “grass roots” topic of conversation;
• Importantly, OHS will become more personally relevant for employees. This will lead to a greater degree of grass roots “buy-in” to OHS practice including hazard identification, injury prevention and consultation policies.