NIOSH Partners with America Achieves to Prepare the Future Workforce with Competencies for Safe and Healthy Employment

MEDIA CONTACT: Stephanie Stevens, yky0@cdc.gov, 202.245.0641

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has partnered with America Achieves, a not-for-profit organization focusing on education-to-workforce issues, to promote young worker safety and health. Through this collaboration, NIOSH and America Achieves have included materials that address foundational, workplace safety and health competencies related to hazard identification and hazard control strategies in a recently released version of Quest for Success, a new, innovative career exploration course for high school students to learn about and prepare for jobs of the future. Any educator, school, or school system in the world can access the Quest for Success curriculum free-of-charge at: www.americaachievesednetworks.org/quest-for-success.

Advances in technology and globalization are leading to new jobs, ways of working, and employer demands—not only for improved academic and technical skills, but also cross-sector competencies like communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. Quest for Success was designed to help all students explore a variety of industry sectors, new and in-demand careers, and related pathways; develop the cross-sector knowledge, skills, character, and dispositions needed to be successful in these and other careers; and learn about themselves to successfully plan for and navigate high school and postsecondary education and the world of work to achieve career and life success.

“Ensuring that future jobs are also safe and healthy jobs is critical to ensuring the health and wellbeing of the workforce,” said NIOSH Director John Howard, M.D. “NIOSH is  pleased to partner with America Achieves to work together to prepare future generations of workers with the knowledge and skills they need to stay safe at work through an innovative career readiness resource.”

Quest for Success now includes materials that address workplace safety and health competencies. These materials are designed to help students develop: 1) concepts of prevention of workplace injuries and illnesses and categories of workplace hazards and 2) thinking skills to identify control strategies for common workplace safety and health hazards. Activities are included to develop and reinforce skills. The materials were adapted from Youth@Work-Talking Safety, a free, foundational curriculum in workplace safety and health from NIOSH and its partners.

America Achieves, in collaboration with educators, originally created and piloted Quest for Success through a partnership with the Louisiana Department of Education. It was developed with input from employers and industry partners, and a variety of national experts, including the National Civil Rights Museum and NIOSH. In 2018, Quest for Success was piloted in over 50 Louisiana classrooms with more than 2,400 students and was subsequently revised and adapted for national dissemination and implementation.

NIOSH is the federal institute that conducts research and makes recommendations for preventing work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths. For more information about NIOSH visit www.cdc.gov/niosh.