Eight organisations and companies were honoured with an award at the ninth annual European Good Practice competition organised within the Healthy Workplaces campaign on risk assessment. The winners and commended entries all promoted good safety and health practices in workplace risk assessment, illustrated in the Good Practice Booklet.
Hundreds of entries from all over Europe were received, covering organisations of all sizes and sectors and subject to a wide variety of risk factors. The Good Practice Booklet gives details of the eight winning and nine commended entries.
In selecting the examples, the judging panel was looking for solutions that show innovative and sustainable ways to tackled risks at source, solutions that go beyond simple compliance with legislation and that actively involve the workforce and demonstrate that risk assessment is linked to a broader occupational safety and health policy.
The award winners included a partnership approach from Romania to create a safe and healthy school. The case can be read in the report.
Please click here for: The announcment | The booklet | TV footage of the winners | Photos of the award ceremony (all links leading to the website of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work and opening a new browser window)

The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) will hold this international conference from 10–12 February 2010 at the Crowne Plaza at Helsinki, Finland. The aim of the Conference is to provide an opportunity to discuss strategies and tools for the promotion of health and well-being at the workplace as well as their links to productivity. All kinds of OSH experts are invited to attend this conference. This event will give opportunities to learn how different actors in the occupational health and safety field in different countries and regions are currently promoting health and safety at workplaces. It will as well show the latest developments and be a forum for presenting findings and demonstrating methods, tools and approaches on this topic.
Organizing Committee: Professor Harri Vainio (Chair) and Dr. Hannu Anttonen (Co-Chair), both FIOH.
For more information, please visit www.ttl.fi/betterwork

We are happy to welcome a new year 2009, which will hopefully be healthy and successful for all our members, partners and colleagues, as well as two new members of our network: the Institution for Statutory Accident Insurance and Prevention for Engineering and the Metal industry, Germany, and the Institute for Safety and Environmental Engineering at the Faculty of Material Science and Technology in Trnava, which is part of the Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
Check our member's area for more information, please.

Our fifth "Hot Topic" is "Healthy Children". Children are our future - and their health and their awareness of healthy behaviour and of health-related dangers are very important! A couple of projects, campaigns and courses all over Europe deal with this topic, so please have a look at our selection of good practice examples!