UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A workshop aimed at protecting children and youth who work and/or live on farms, co-hosted by Penn State Extension’s Farm Safety Team, will take place March 28-29 at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey.

The Child Ag Injury Prevention Workshop is designed for those who work in or with the agriculture industry and wish to improve their knowledge and dissemination of child agricultural injury-prevention strategies, according to Michael Pate, Nationwide Insurance Associate Professor of Agricultural Safety and Health in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

“This is a very important topic because nearly a quarter of Pennsylvania farm fatalities in 2018 involved youth under the age of 18,” he said. “Children and youth are often untrained, inexperienced, not closely supervised and emotionally or physically immature for many agricultural work tasks. This workshop is critically important for those considering hiring youth or for farm families assigning chores to children.”

Penn State Extension specialists will present information on best practices for promotion and dissemination of safety information, understanding agricultural work involving “plain sect” youth, safety practices when hiring youth for agricultural work, and child labor laws pertaining to hazardous work in agriculture.

By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to understand the leading causes of injuries to children who are either working or playing on farms; describe interventions most likely to be effective in preventing childhood farm injuries; and identify their — and their organization’s — unique role in helping farm children grow up happy and healthy.

The National Children’s Center, a program of the National Farm Medicine Center, Marshfield Clinic Research Institute, and the New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health, part of Bassett Healthcare, are co-hosting the workshop with Penn State. Event sponsors include Westfield Insurance, John Deere and the National Farm Medicine Center.

Early-bird registration, with a discounted registration fee of $199, ends March 1. Scholarships are available to assist with the cost of registration. More information, including the registration link, is available at https://marshfieldresearch.org/CAIP-Workshop or by calling 800-662-6900.

The National Children’s Center is funded, in part, by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.