Young Workers: Interdisciplinary Education Program

描述(求职者提供)：打工是整个北美青春期常见的一部分，约80%的高中生都有工作。医学研究所1998年的一份报告确定了与青年工人安全和青年发展有关的问题，主要依靠公共卫生和青年发展文献，就改善工人安全的监测、研究和干预措施提出了建议。虽然工作可以是发展的一个重要组成部分，但帮助青少年和年轻人获得工作技能，行使自主权，发展更大程度的能力和经济独立，部分取决于工作经验本身的性质，但也有许多不利之处。旨在保护他们免受工作危险或超时工作影响的法律经常被雇主违反，执法力度有限。即使是符合法律的工作也可能是危险的；部分原因是培训和监督不力，监督往往由其他青少年而不是成年人提供。工作可能会分散年轻人对学业的注意力，为不良的同伴影响提供机会，并提供可能与物质使用增加相关的可支配收入。需要对专业人员进行进一步教育，以促进制订和传播以证据为基础的战略，以优化青少年的工作经验。尽管有几个学科研究了年轻人工作的好处和成本，但如何将风险降至最低并提高好处尚不清楚。这些文献仍然各具特色，既没有很好的综合，也没有在实践中应用，也没有对领导人进行综合培训，以利用现有证据或广泛传播现有证据。这一系列教育项目由多学科联合组织小组推动，旨在增加学术交流，促进新领导者在研究、职业健康和安全实践、工作政策和商业方面的教育，以改善年轻工人的条件。这项工作由安大略省神经创伤基金会联合支持，解决了R25机制的一个主要主题；那就是“促进跨学科科学家的发展或与人口有关的跨学科科学的开展”。该项目以以下四个目标为指导。目标1：加强与青年劳动的健康和安全影响有关的跨学科学术研究，方法是让包括博士生在内的不同高级和初级调查人员与青年就业各方面的政策和方案负责人一起工作；目标2：综合当前的信息，使学习者更容易获得关于青年发展、工作组织以及健康和安全做法的理论和原则如何影响青年劳动的风险或好处的当前信息；目标3：让一系列学者和实践者参与制定议程，以促进以更综合的方法培训研究人员、从业人员和企业领导人，以提高青年工人的工作质量；目标4：制定战略，改进青年就业研究向未来学生、从业人员、政策制定者、研究人员和商界领袖持续传播知识的工作。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Working for pay is a usual part of adolescence throughout North America, with about 80% of high school students employed. A 1998 report of the Institute of Medicine identified issues associated with young worker safety and youth development, making recommendations about surveillance, research and interventions to improve worker safety, relying mostly on public health and youth development literature. Though work can be an important component of development, helping adolescents and young adults acquire work skills, exercise autonomy, and develop a greater degree of competence and financial independence depending, in part, on the nature of the work experience itself, there are many downsides. Laws designed to protect them from work hazards or excessive hours are often breached by employers and enforcement is limited. Even work in conformance with the laws may be dangerous; in part because of poor training and supervision, with supervision frequently provided by other adolescents rather than by adults. Work can distract youth from schoolwork, provide opportunities for undesirable peer influence, and provide disposable income that may be associated with increased substance use. Further education of professionals is needed to facilitate development and dissemination of evidence-based strategies to optimize work experiences for adolescents. Though several disciplines address the benefits and costs of work for youth, how to minimize risks and enhance benefits is unclear. The literatures remain distinct and are neither well synthesized nor applied in practice and there is no integrated training for leaders that draws on existing evidence or disseminates it broadly. Facilitated by a multidisciplinary Joint Organizing Group, this series of educational programs is designed to increase scholarly exchange and advance the education of new leaders in research, occupational health and safety practice, work policy and business so as to improve conditions for young workers. This work, jointly supported by the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation, addresses one of the major themes of the R25 mechanism; that is, "to facilitate the development of interdisciplinary scientists or the conduct of interdisciplinary science related to population." The project is guided by the following four aims. Aim 1: To enhance interdisciplinary scholarship related to the health and safety effects of youth labor by engaging a diverse group of senior and junior investigators, including doctoral students, with policy and program leaders concerned with various aspects of youth employment; Aim 2: To synthesize and make more accessible to learners the current information addressing how theories and principles of youth development, organization of work, and health and safety practices influence the risks or benefits of youth labor; Aim 3: To engage an array of scholars and practitioners in setting an agenda that will facilitate more integrated approaches to training researchers, practitioners and business leaders in improving the quality of work for young workers; and Aim 4: To develop strategies to improve the continued dissemination of knowledge from research on youth employment to future students, practitioners, policy makers, researchers, and business leaders.