Health and Safety for Beginners Forums

1. Create a "How to get into the H&S profession" document.



I think something like this would be AMAZING

so did it ever happen? we still seem to be getting lots of questions on the forum and as yet i haven't seen anyone post a link to this new section. It's easy having these ideas it's the execution that's the problem

Red

until something is more concrete and I guess a good way for others to see different ways of getting into health and safety why dont we all do our own version of

How did I get here?

everyone wites a paragragh about what they do, maybe qualifications and how they got there - that way when Newbies look it helps them to look at different routes - I know this helped me when I was a newbie and I read the stories in a well known safety magazine ....

I was an internal auditor for ISO9001, which has a clause about health and safety.
My employer at the time sent me along to an introductory RoSPA course (1 day of pleasure) and I started writing H&S risk assessments and building them into the ISO9001 process documents I was responsible for... then FLT training was added to what I coordinated, then first aid (along with IT and quality courses). when I left them I moved to a company as a quality and IT manager and because I had H&S experience I aquired responsibility for that too.
A couple of years self employed doing IT stuff (after being made redundant) and then I was head hunted (makes me sound important, but really I was just cheap) into my current position and squarley plonked with responsibility for QHSE for a fairly complex manufacturing site.

So how do you get into H&S, for me it was expansion of Quality Management and seeing H&S as just being part of a quality organisation.

I got my qualifications because of the job I was doing... I didn't follow the get trained then get a job route but I guess that also works.

Was this document ever made?

I guess technically I work in H&S at the moment but would be interesting to hear more information from others on how they would suggest progressing as I work in quite and entry level/ trainee role at the moment. Other people's experience and thoughts could be useful.

dont know about the document but How I got here...

I was working in various roles that all at some point included health and safety, the first one that had alot of health and safety in it was a facilities role. I completed managing safely (which I paid for myself)

I have a keen interest in the environment so I completed the Nebosh enviromental certificate as it was a pilot course and was a quarter of the price it is today, this got me a job as a health and safety and environmental coordinator due to the HR person thinking I had a Nebosh general certificate (I found out later) the HSE manager mentored me, but it was only a contract role and they wanted someone with a NGC so I started to do the certificate (paid for by me) but my contract ended, I was unemployed for a year so it gave me time to concentrate on the certificate and I was able to offer free advice to a small business which built my knowledge.

I was offered through linkedin the role I am doing now which allowed me to finish the NGC (need to do the report in a work environment) I have taught First aid and Managing safely and I am now dong my diploma (paid for by the business)

for me, Health and safety was something I fell into, discovered I really enjoyed it and that it was a calling... but soon realised that I would have to work hard and spend money to get where I wanted to be. oh and it takes time - it will never happen overnight