Susan Harwood Training Grant Awarded to UW-River Falls for Fourth Consecutive Year

September 25, 2014—The U. S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has awarded UW-River Falls $112,506 through the Susan Harwood Training Grant. The grant will be used to continue training programs for dairy producers and their employees through the Center for Dairy Farm Safety. This marks the fourth consecutive year UW-River Falls has received a Susan Harwood Training Grant. 

In the last three years, in cooperation with UW-Extension and the National Farm Medicine Center, the Center for Dairy Farm Safety has trained more than 600 dairy producers and more than 1,000 employees in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and recently, New York. The grant dollars help to continue support for the eight module producer training now available online and the five module dairy farm worker training presented on farms in English and Spanish. 

This year, the Center for Dairy Farm Safety will design a new training module, "Dairy Farm Worker Personal Health and Safety," in English and Spanish. UW-River Falls will be partnering with the National Farm Medicine Center, the UW-Eau Claire nursing program, and the Mexican consulate in St. Paul to develop and pilot this new module.  

The Susan Harwood Training Grant Program supports safety and health training programs that educate workers and employees in industries with high injury, illness, and fatality rates; underserved youth; limited English proficiency and other vulnerable workers; and small businesses. More information on the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program is available on OSHA's website at http://www.osha.gov/dte/sharwood. 

To request Center for Dairy Farm Safety training services, contact Connie Smith, UWRF director of Risk Management and Center for Dairy Farm Safety program director, at 715-425-3344 or email connie.smith@uwrf.edu. Additional Center for Dairy Farm Safety program information is available at https://www.uwrf.edu/CenterForDairyFarmSafety.