Ontario’s Occupational Health & Safety Act requires all workplaces with 20 or more regularly employed workers to have a Joint Health & Safety Committee. Two of these committee members must be certified (one management representative and one worker representative). Certification requires completion of both Part I (Basic) and Part II (WPS) Certification Training for Joint Health & Safety Committee members.
Workplaces with 50+ regular workers must have a committee that consists of a minimum of 4 members, with at least 1 worker rep and 1 management rep certified.
Back in March of 2016 the Ministry of Labour (MOL) introduced new legislation for the Joint Health & Safety Committee certification course. They standardized the learning material, learning outcomes and course presentation and increased the duration from 3 or 4 days, depending on your industry, to 5 days for all industries, three days for Part 1 Basic and two days for Part 2 Workplace Specific.
The refresher training must be completed 3 years from the completion of your Part 2 class date.
The MOL also made any training provider complete a rigorous approval process for not only their new program, but also for each instructor that would be training the program. This included creating and submitting the new program, as per the MOL guidelines, then having an MOL representative sit in on the first part of the course. This entire process took months and costs training providers 10’s of thousands of dollars.
The MOL also introduced a mandatory JHSC 1 Day Refresher training class for those that complete the program after March 1, 2016. This refresher training is required to be completed every 3 years for those that completed the JHSC program after March 1, 2016. This process also took months to complete because of the backlog and just the general lack of motivation to approve certain programs, and it also costs the training providers thousands of dollars.
Anyone who completed the JHSC training under the old standards, prior to March 1, 2016 was grandfathered in and their certification will never expire, they are not required to complete the JHSC 1 Day Refresher course in order to maintain their certification.
If you were fully certified under the old standards, (prior to March 1, 2016) it is not mandatory to take the refresher course as your certification will not expire. You may still attend the course to get updated on the current standards, regulations, legislation and all the changes that have taken place in the past years, which have been many.
This is also a great course if you already have the required amount of certified members on your committee, but you'd like to add additional members without going through the entire 5 days of the JHSC full certification course. After completing, your participants will have the confidence and knowledge to perform their functions within the committee.
The JHSC program has changed dramatically under the new standards, and the JHSC 1 Day Refresher course is a full day that is only taught by Chief Prevention Officer (CPO) approved training providers and approved trainers.
Some of the topics that are covered can be found on the JHSC Refresher training course outline and include;
- Discuss the rights, duties, functions and responsibilities of JHSC members and certified members
- Review the roles, duties, and responsibilities of workplace parties
- Identify changes & updates to legislation, standards, codes of practices, and new safety initiatives from the last three years
- Review the concepts of Hazard Management - RACE – Recognize, Assess, Control and Evaluate
- Discuss best practices and challenges with other JHSC certified members
See our next JHSC Refresher training class and the rest of the workplace safety training that we provide. Registration is quick and easy when you go to Joint Health & Safety Committee online registration. If you’d rather we send you an invoice, that’s not a problem at all, just contact us here or call the office at 905.664.4943.