In a time of budgetary belt-tightening, it’s often hard for safety professionals to get the training, or even the networking, needed to learn about new or best approaches. Professional development is left to whatever you can pick up from a friend or happen to read in an article (hopefully something from SafetyXChange!).

To help fill this gap, SafetyXChange is always watching out for good training opportunities we can pass along to our members. And here’s one we think you should know about.

Slips, Trips and Falls: Best Practices and Standards, a Virtual Symposium

The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) has started delivering a series of Virtual Symposia. Their first was held back in April and was on the topic of Safety Management. Their next Virtual Symposium comes up at the end of October and is on the topic of Slips, Trips and Falls.

As innocent as they may seem, slips, trips and falls are one of the major causes of fatal workplace injuries. As safety and health professionals, we know that these injuries are preventable. But how do we avoid them? How can we minimize the costs – both personal and financial – of slips, trips and falls? The ASSE’s Virtual Symposium has a line-up of sessions on how to proactively deal with this all-too-common workplace occurrence.

What’s a Virtual Symposium?

Combining elements of social networking sites like Facebook and interactive webcasts, virtual symposia are meant to:

• Be engaging. The goal is to capture the feeling of a live training opportunity and deliver it all to your desktop;
• Be simple. To participate, attendees only need a computer with an Internet connection;
• Be convenient. With the ASSE, for example, you can attend a session “live” during the day of the session, or view the recording of the session later that night, for up to 30 days after the symposium ends.

According to Dan McNeill of the ASSE, here are some of the benefits of attending their upcoming event:

• Ability to attend over 12 general and concurrent sessions – either Synchronously or Asynchronously;
• Ability to attend an online “virtual” expo;
• Free ANSI/ASSE Standards and other event materials including articles and session slides;
• Ability to earn 1.0 CEUs; and
• Networking opportunities with your colleagues from around the world. While the majority of attendees will probably be from the U.S., the symposium is also expected to draw a large number of international attendees, including people from Canada, the UK and Qatar.

The Slips, Trips and Falls Virtual Symposium begins October 20th and has a great lineup of speakers (including SafetyXChange contributor Pam Ferrante). If you want to check it out, you can find information and a registration page here. (Note that the early bird registration deadline is Thursday, October 1, 2009.)

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