Safety Resources
Contact Richard Colwell, APSC Safety Officer
As TA’s are employees, to be in compliance with WorkSafeBC legislation, all workers must complete the following mandatory training:
- A general UBC safety orientation and training before beginning work.
- A site-specific safety orientation and training with their supervisor (checklist available for download at the end of the previously mentioned course).
- Preventing and Addressing Workplace Bullying & Harassment training.
- Workplace Violence Prevention training
For more information and links to these courses please go the RMS website.
If there are specific hazards in the classroom that they are teaching, your department or supervisor may also require additional training. For example, for wet chemistry labs, it would mean the RMS Chemical Safety course, for biohazards it would be the RMS Biosafety course, for laser light hazards the LASER Safety course, etc. WHMIS is only required when working with chemicals or chemicals are being stored in the teaching space.
These are fairly specialised cases and most departments (e.g. CHBE) are aware and already do this.
As TAs are in a supervisory role, and since the above scenario is directly related to it, another requirement is the Floor Warden course. You should also be aware of is the location of the nearest AED to your classroom, that First Aid number to call for undergrad students is 911 and for paid Students, Faculty and staff it’s 2-4444.