Posted By Ken Dickson
Elliot,

There is certainly a duty here to protect the supervised individuals from harm.

It may be the case that (at least) some of the individuals have what one might call a “selective” understanding of English that enables them to choose a convenient level of comprehension. Despite this, they must understand what they are going to do from someone or something, and this someone or something would be the best asset to use in conveying the H&S messages.

Ken

Posted By Ken Dickson
Salus,

With respect, I would suggest individuals who present that level of risk while undertaking community service work, would not be undertaking community service work.

Ken

Posted By Clare Gabriel
My first piece of advice would be to contact the probation service health and safety advisor for the area. There has to be one???

Surely the probation service has produced risk assessments for exactly this kind of thing - it is not exactly a new problem. Clearly they have a duty of care to the 'attendees' for example if they are carrying out groundwork and using equipment such as mowers/strimmers.

In addition knowing that some of the attendees may be drug dependent etc there needs to be a higher level of supervision and explanation of risk due to their 'mental state'

One would therefore hope that there are either interpreters or interpretations in the 'local' language of the attendees so that they can work safely.

If not then it begs the question then why have the HSE not picked up on such an issue? they are getting excited about step ladders why not the safety of probation staff?

If none of this is the case I would imagine your colleague has a good case for not running such a project due to their own liability and vulnerability

Is there also a lone working issue here too - again one would hope there are more than one probation staff members on each scheme!! But knowing how vicious cuts in this service have been I would hate to presume this!!!

Posted By LIM BOON KHOON
Dear Eliot

We have many foreign workers employ in different industries in Singapore. Prior to the issuing of a work permit they are required to attend a safety orientation course conducted by the authority and also to attend in-house orientation program before they are put on the job. The EHS orientation program is conducted in their respective languages through i) video presentation or ii) interpretators or iii)engaging their own group leaders or iv) through pictures on Dos and donts
They are tested at the end of the program. This is conducted either orally or written whichever is applicable.

I hope you find this useful.

Best Regards


Lim Boon Khoon