DiSCO - Department Safety Coordinators and Officers: Building Safety Culture

摘要

At the University of California, Davis, Colleges/Departments, Organized Research Units, and Administrative units are required to appoint a Department Safety Coordinator (DSC). DSCs share information from the campus' Safety Services/EH&S organization to their departments and facilitate compliance with California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) standards and other regulatory programs. The DSC role, however, is often part-time, assigned at seemingly arbitrary percentages to people who do not, necessarily, have professional safety backgrounds. The role can be overwhelming, isolating, conflicting, and lead to burn-out, especially as the role often competes with other non-safety responsibilities. We introduce a grass roots effort to connect and support DSCs across the campus and how this effort has evolved into a thriving online safety community, with an impact beyond its own activity.