New Safety Training Materials for Small Business Owners and Managers
Check out the new Small Business Resources (http://www.dir.ca.gov/chswc/SBMRhealthandsafety.htm) recently released by the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation (CHSWC).  These materials will help you provide a one-hour interactive safety training to your employees designed to engage them in your safety program, and help ensure that your business meets Cal/OSHA training requirements. The materials include: a training guide for owners or managers; a Safety Orientation Checklist; Tip Sheets on preventing injuries from ergonomic hazards, robberies and assaults, and emergencies on the job; and Fact Sheets on Controlling Hazards and the Basics of Cal/OSHA. 

Free training workshops for small business owners on how to use the materials are also available.  This project is part of the Worker Occupational Safety and Health Training and Education Program (WOSHTEP) administered by CHSWC in partnership with the Labor Occupational Health Program (LOHP) at the University of California, Berkeley and the Labor Occupational Safety and Health (LOSH) Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Contact Diane Bush at UC Berkeley LOHP, [email protected], 510-643-2424, or Laurie Kominski at UCLA LOSH, 310-794-5964, [email protected].

Community Emergency Response Training
Community Emergency Response Training
Community Emergency Response Teams are groups of amateur emergency workers. CERT personnel receive basic training from emergency response professionals and work in the initial aftermath of a disaster to augment official emergency services. CERT members are not intended to replace a community's professional response capability, but rather to serve as an important supplement to it.

The Community Emergency Response Team concept was developed and implemented by the City of Los Angeles Fire Department in 1985. They recognized that citizens would very likely be on their own during the early stages of a catastrophic disaster. Accordingly, LAFD decided that some basic training in disaster survival and rescue skills would improve the ability of citizens to survive until professional responders or other assistance could arrive. The Whittier Narrows earthquake of 1987 underscored the threat of a major disaster in California and the need for training civilians in the CERT concept. As a result, LAFD created the Disaster Preparedness Division with the purpose of training citizens in CERT. That training proved to be so beneficial that the Federal Emergency Management Agency felt that the concept and the program should be made available to communities nationwide. With the cooperation of the LAFD, FEMA's Emergency Management Institute expanded the CERT training materials to make them applicable to all hazards.

Get Ready Disaster Preparedness
Get Ready Disaster Preparedness
Disaster professionals use to say, "the most important thing we can do is be prepared to survive for 72 hours."  Now the discussion is minimum five days in our homes. This first line of defense, called "Shelter in Place," will save the most lives. To help you prepare, the Disaster Preparedness Task Force is offering a two-hour course to teach you what to do before, during and after a regional disaster.

Department of Industrial Relations
Department of Industrial Relations - Safety
Safety training material for small business.  Guideline and basic CAL/OSHA.

CPR Classes
CPR Class Schedule
The Ross Valley Fire Department is offering CPR classes to interested members of the public. The course is entitled "HeartSaver CPR" and is sponsored by the American Heart Association.