Every year, the BC Care Awards celebrate care providers who go above and beyond delivering care to our seniors.
In this profile, we feature Safety Champion award winner Erin Terry from Strive Living Society for her work supporting the safety of her coworkers and the individuals who utilize their programs.
Here’s what Erin’s colleague and nominator Alisha Lundgren-Drinkwater’s had to say about her:
As a non-profit organization with close to 800 individuals and 500 employees, it can be a challenge to educate staff and maintain correct protocol, policies, and procedures with our diverse clients and variety of services. Erin does it with passion, enthusiasm, and a smile.
She creates monthly safety segments for our internal newsletter, runs frequent earthquake and fire drills, holds monthly safety committee meetings, and creates useful reports. She has been the runner up on several safety awareness competitions in British Columbia, including one for Safe Care BC’s Safety Den competition and NAOSH Week BC. We are runner up for the Social Services category this year.
Erin runs our OSH committee and is a huge driving force behind it. She is dedicated and passionate about safety in our workplace. She is the go-to for everything safety related at our organization and is always willing to answer questions and provide assistance. She is always up-to-date on best practices and keeps the teams informed of any new developments.
Erin got us through our CARF accreditation process seamlessly and the surveyors praised her as extremely knowledgeable of all safety protocol. Each year Erin creates an Open House display that is entirely focused on safety in the workplace. She creates hands on activities, including an AED machine, first aid kits, office ergonomics, as well as numerous safety displays that are interactive. She created an “identify the hazard” display in a kitchen that was extremely creative and encouraged participation.
Last year over 75 people attended our safety open house and it received great feedback. Attendees took photos of the displays to show others. We promote these events on our social media and internal and external newsletters, as well as the Burnaby Board of Trade.
Erin attends any type of safety event in the Lower Mainland that is applicable to social services and/or assisted living. She is involved with Safe Care BC and has completed an array of training pertaining to safety for clients with developmental or physical disabilities and employee (both front-line and https://bccare.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/medcare-img22.jpgistrative).
Erin sets a high standard of health and safety best practices at our organization. She is dedicated to improving our protocol and educating our employees. When we went through our CARF accreditation process and were reviewed by a team of surveyors, they called Erin a “powerhouse” and our health and safety standards passed with flying colours.
Erin takes initiative in health and safety. Each year she coordinates a NAOSH Week Open House at our head office. This features interactive tables and displays encouraging the public to learn about safety and participate. She makes the displays engaging and interesting. Last year we had over 75 people in attendance and feedback was excellent.
Erin’s recent safety campaign earned us Runner Up in the NAOSH Week BC Awards. She was also runner up in Safe Care BC’s Safety Den competition. Erin recently became a Mandt System trainer and trains our employees in non-violent crisis intervention.
The Safety Champion award is sponsored by Points West AV.
