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. ? ? ?
