Safety Officer Course: The Various Components Explained

The safety officer course has become an essential teaching guide in South Africa today. With the ever-growing importance of occupational health and safety, as employees today demand a safe workplace, and the government have legislated it, it is important to have trained safety officers on site, no matter what industry.

The safety officer course is a comprehensive educational course that can take up to two weeks to complete. However, once completed, the graduate will be a qualified safety officer and can be hired to conduct safety practices in your business. It is important to remember that although the South Africa Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (SAIOSH) safety officer accreditation will not expire, the individual modules that make up the course can expire after two years.

In this article, the goal is to look at some of the most critical modules that currently make up the EMCARE safety officer course and what you can expect to learn from each listed below.

Combined First Aid Level 1 - 3

No matter where you receive your safety officer course training, every course, including the comprehensive industry-leading safety officer course presented by EMCARE, will include first aid training. This is one of the most critical aspects of any safety training, and as part of the EMCARE course, we will train students from level one to level three. But how does each level differ from each other? Let us look at the three levels below:

• Level 1: This is a beginner's guide to first aid. Within it, you will be introduced to how you should conduct yourself in emergencies and how to manage the site of emergency. You will also be taught how to deal with some of the most common injuries like fractures and burns and also learn how to provide artificial respiration (or cardiopulmonary resuscitation).
  
  
• Level 2: This intermediate course will cover a few more complex subjects. At this level, you will be taught how to handle several unique emergency situations, including water-based accidents, poisonings and car accidents. You will also undergo more complicated techniques like two rescuers and infant CPR. Finally, the course will also educate you further on emergency equipment and human physiology.
  
  
• Level 3: This is a professional emergency care standard training. Generally reserved for professionals, like those who want to work as a safety officer. Here, you will be taught how to handle specialised situations like emergency childbirth or behavioural emergencies. You will also learn unique techniques like oxygen therapy.

Basic Fire Fighting

Another common occurrence in some industries is the risk of fires. That is why it is essential for an EMCARE safety officer course to train its prospective safety officers on the correct way to handle fires and give them basic firefighting skills. Within this course, you would not only learn to fight fires but also how to spot the signs of a fire beginning and the different types of fires you can come into contact with.

The basic firefighting course is in-depth and will train students in several critical aspects regarding firefighting. This part of the safety officer course is aligned with governmental standards, as it meets both the CETA and LGSETA standards. Let us look at some of the educational components you may cover during your safety officer course training:

• Basic fire information: Within this part of the course, you will be trained on not only how to identify a fire but also the different types of fires, the different types of extinguishing methods and the correct personal protection equipment (PPE) you should have readily available.
  
  
• Fire Fighting Equipment: Another vital aspect of this course would be to know the difference in fire fighting equipment and how to use it. This includes fire hoses, fire buckets and fire blankets. You will be taught how to use various fire extinguishers and look at water and foam extinguishing methods to combat different types of fires.
  
  
• Fire Emergency Situations: You will also be taught how to conduct yourself properly in a situation where a fire breaks out. There are many important steps you should take to get out alive, and you will learn how to form an emergency plan, lifting and carrying techniques and operating procedures.

Risk Assessment Course

The final element of the EMCARE safety officer course this article wants to highlight is the section on risk assessment. Risk assessment is crucial to your safety officer training as this will be a prominent task you must be able to perform correctly when hired on to any company as a safety officer.

This element of your safety officer course will not only teach you the correct terminology involved with conducting a risk assessment but will also provide you with the knowledge on how to spot potential risks and how to effectively combat them. This part of the course will help you prevent emergency situations from ever occurring if the risk assessment is conducted thoroughly and correctly.

Preventing emergencies is the primary task of all safety officers, so let us look at what the risk assessment course would entail:

• Identify: In this section of the course, you would learn to find potential risks and how to identify their root causes, not only the surface symptoms. You will also be taught how to adjust your assessment based on the industry you are working in, which will make your ability to identify more effective.
  
  
• Evaluate: Simply identifying issues is not enough, being able to evaluate how risky a situation may be or how far along an issue is can be critical to an effective risk assessment. Within this part of the course, you would learn how to learn how to perform risk ranking correctly and learn techniques on how to analyse the probability of a situation occurring.
  
  
• Prevent: The most important part of this course is learning how to prevent the situations you have identified and evaluated. In order to do this, you will learn many different techniques, from implementing office safety policies how to train staff correctly and even how to host effective safety meetings with management.

EMCARE: Premium Level Safety

When it comes to a safety officer course in South Africa, it is best to go with EMCARE, not only do we proudly work closely with a number of the safety branches of our government, but we also are well accredited in a number of safety fields.

The article above only discussed three of the most important aspects of the safety officer course we present, but there are a whole host of other categories we will cover during your training. Furthermore, the elements discussed above as well as all other components of your safety officer course, are also offered separately if you ever need a refresher.

So, to learn more about the EMCARE safety officer course, as well as all the other courses we offer, be sure to head over to our website today and book your next session with us as soon as you can.