Development of Occupational Health and Safety Training Course for Migrant Worker Volunteers through Cooperative Learning Technique.

Abstract

The research and development study was conducted to establish occupational health (OH) and safety training course for migrant worker volunteers. It composed of three phases including 1) training needs 2) course establishment and 3) course evaluation. In phase 1, a one-day meeting was conducted to gather data from 20 participants including human resources personal and migrant employees in Samut Prakan and Samut Sakhon. OH experts who worked related to migrant workers also were invited to suggest the content of such course. Then, the course was documented, tried out and evaluated in phase 2 and phase 3, respectively. Quantitative data were analyzed using frequency and percentage while qualitative data were analyzed by component analysis. Results in phase 1 showed that safety topics were frequently trained in most enterprises. Such course should integrate all public health issues including OH, environmental health and diseases prevention. The topics such as labour laws, diseases prevention, health promotion, drug use and health services access should be packed in the course. Cooperative learning technique was used in the constructed course. It included 8 elements as follows; 1) course rationale 2) course philosophy 3) course objective 4) course duration: 4 hours 5) qualification of the trainees 6) course description: 4 modules 7) course media: 3 languages if available (Thai, Myanmar and Cambodia) and 8) course evaluation. Introduction and OH volunteer roles, communicable and non-communicable diseases prevention, guideline to access the health services and the occupational diseases and injuries protection were included in 4 modules. Games and group discussion were used to increase participation. Total 76 migrant employees in 4 enterprises participated in this course and more than 60% of them were very satisfied. However, after 3 months follow up, only trainees in 2 enterprises could follow the roles of such volunteers. This study recommended that the course should increase the training time and add the COVID-19 prevention content in the 2nd module. Additionally, safety officers or human resources officers should participate in this course to guide the migrant trainees and support them to conduct occupational health and safety activities following their roles.