Jan Safety Beacon -- what do these articles have to do with CAP safety?

[Private Investigator]

When CAP starts paying my bills they will have a right to force me to spend time on safety issues having nothing to do with CAP.  I have stayed in CAP knowing that I will have to put up with our silly safety meetings, ...

It is about mindset. If you have a 100% safety mindset you will be good to go. Unfortunately most people survive on 50% safety mindset and luck. Of course we all know people who are, "a pending accident", not today but not a surprise when it happens.

Stay safe my friends. 

[JeffDG]

When CAP starts paying my bills they will have a right to force me to spend time on safety issues having nothing to do with CAP.  I have stayed in CAP knowing that I will have to put up with our silly safety meetings, ...

It is about mindset. If you have a 100% safety mindset you will be good to go. Unfortunately most people survive on 50% safety mindset and luck. Of course we all know people who are, "a pending accident", not today but not a surprise when it happens.

Stay safe my friends.

Yep.  Keeping safety in your mind is what the purpose of a safety culture is.

It doesn't matter a hill of beans the specifics of the safety education topics.  The point is to get people thinking about safety in general.  You cannot anticipate every hazard, every risk.  What you can do is try and make sure people are thinking about safety in everything that they do.

Where I work, we promote a culture of safety every day.  The standard mantra of "zero incidents at the workplace" has had the "at the workplace" deleted from it.  I actually care if a co-worker falls off a ladder taking down his Christmas lights...because I care about my co-worker.  Once you get to the point where it doesn't matter if someone is hurt at work or somewhere else, then you have begun to achieve a culture of safety.

People here complain about having to do some kind of safety education monthly.  If I have five meetings on Monday, there will be five distinct discussions of safety on Monday.  The first item on the agenda of every single meeting where I work is safety.  This isn't some construction site or industrial plant, it's a normal everyday office environment.

This is not a waste of time or resources, it's an investment in your fellow members.

[Ned]

It doesn't matter a hill of beans the specifics of the safety education topics.  The point is to get people thinking about safety in general.  You cannot anticipate every hazard, every risk.  What you can do is try and make sure people are thinking about safety in everything that they do.

Well, yes and no.  I can only agree that a safety culture is critical and I certainly don't envy the officers responsible for publishing safety education materials, inclduing the Beacon.  It is difficult and demanding work.

But, having said that I think it goes too far to say the "it doesn't matter" what the topics are.  Most of the evidence-based safety research I have seen suggests that the target audience attends to and internalizes safety information better when they have some connection to the safety topic.  Restated, if the have some "skin in the game" they are far more likely to pay attention and - even more importantly- change their safety-related behaviors.


And the reverse is also true - forcing members to engage in and complete safety eduction in topics that will never affect them ("Immediate Actions Upon Tsunami Warnings" in KSWG or "Winter Weather Flying" in HIWG) actually disincentivises safety education and undermines the necessary safety culture by devaluing it in the members' eyes and turning it into some sort of "ticket-punching" exercise.


And while I must also agree with you that it is impossible to "anticipate every hazard, every risk, " I think you would in turn agree with me that the whole point of our ORM process is to anticipate the most likely and the most dangerous risks.  It does not seem too difficult to use the ORM process to drive safety education and select topics related to the most common and most dangerous risks our volunteers face in their CAP and private lives.

Thank you for all the work that you and other safety officers do to protect us all.

Ned Lee

[vento]

^^ +1  :clap:

[RiverAux]

Ned, I'm glad to hear that you have some sympathy to my point of view on this issue (while obviously framing it in the less contentious way that you are known for). 

[Extremepredjudice]

Ned, maybe regional safety officers should publish their own "safety beacons" so they can brief people on stuff affecting their region.

[bflynn]

But, having said that I think it goes too far to say the "it doesn't matter" what the topics are.  Most of the evidence-based safety research I have seen suggests that the target audience attends to and internalizes safety information better when they have some connection to the safety topic.

This is pretty straight on.  Here in central NC, we don't get much snow, so winter driving tips aren't really useful, although we get the briefing every year.  Yes, we should put chains on our cars, but we don't own chains in the South.  We had an inch of snow this winter and it lasted for 2 hours.

More recently we had a very good presentation on hypothermia.  That's relevant and was very well listened to.

Having some connection to the briefing and having it presented at an adult level is important.  Telling us not to touch hot stoves doesn't work...