The New England Consortium (TNEC) is a unique hazardous waste worker/emergency responder health and safety training coalition. It is based in the Work Environment Program of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, is directed by faculty and staff there, and includes five grassroots labor-based organizations for occupational safety and health (COSH groups): MassCOSH, ConnectiCOSH, RICOSH, Western MassCOSH, and NHCOSH. Boston University School of Public Health provides expertise in occupational medicine. TNEC was begun in 1987 as one of the initial NIEHS Superfund training grantees and has trained more than 5,000 workers in the designated target worker populations. The proposed extended training program can be implemented immediately upon award using TNEC's existing training resources and, curriculum for hazardous waste site personnel and emergency responders. TNEC's approach is based on participatory worker education theory and incorporates hands-on activities. TNEC proposes to provide training to 1,300 New England workers each year in five states for the next three years: 600 private sector workers and 700 public sector workers. An additional 150 Spanish-speaking workers are targeted for training annually in Massachusetts and Connecticut in an initiative to reach Latinos within the NIEHS-defined target populations.TNEC will target these public sector job categories: police, road crew workers, emergency, medical technicians, hospital emergency personnel, site investigators and inspectors, emergency management personnel, emergency response personnel at public facilities, sewage treatment plant workers, airport and transit system emergency response personnel. In the private sector, targets include: environmental consultants and engineers, hazardous waste site workers and supervisors, and industrial emergency responders. Funding is requested to enable free delivery of courses to public sector workers and discounted course rates to private sector employers so that training is more feasible for small and medium-sized employers in the recession-hit region. Cooperation with the Service Employees International Union is planned to deliver training to its members in the New Hampshire Department of Transportation and to help develop the ability of that agency to maintain training independently. TNEC also proposes to help government agencies to expand capabilities for in-house training. Also proposed is establishment of a toll-free regional occupational health telephone hotline for both worker and employer participants in our training. A comprehensive quality assurance/evaluation component would include mechanisms for assessing benefits of learner-centered worker health and safety training. TNEC's active advisory board is representative of regional management, labor, relevant professional and government groups, and academia. TNEC is prepared, to actively participate in a cooperative agreement with NIEHS.
