Healthy Working MOVE from Cardinus and the Health and Safety Laboratory receives prestigious award from health and safety professionals in the US

• Program that teaches children to work and relax safely when using electronic devices will be offered free of charge to all primary schools, secondary schools and colleges in the UK

An e-learning course designed to protect children from the health risks of poor posture, careless use of electronic devices and bad manual handling activity has received one of the top international awards for ergonomics solutions.

Healthy Working MOVE, developed by Cardinus Risk Management, has won the prestigious Attendees’ Choice Award at ErgoExpo 2013. The award is voted for by health and safety professionals at the biggest ergonomics event in the US.

Jon Abbott, director of ergonomics and safety at Cardinus, said, “I am absolutely delighted at winning this award. I am also a little surprised as the Attendees’ Choice Award typically recognises products and services that directly affect the workplace.

Healthy Working MOVE is a free-to-use resource for schools, colleges and universities which has an indirect benefit in that it will help prevent poor behaviours and injuries developing amongst our young people that employers will ultimately inherit.”

Healthy Working MOVE has been developed by Cardinus in association with the Health and Safety Laboratory, an agency of the Health and Safety Executive, to help keep young people safe. The e-learning is based on another award-winning training programme called Workstation Safety Plus that helps to protect adult workers around the world. The e-learning course uses engaging online activities to teach young people about the safe use of technology. There is a version for children under 12 years old and a version for the over-12s. The resources are all available at www.ergonomics4kids.com.

Lorna Taylor, paediatric physiotherapist involved in the product development, said, “It’s fantastic news that the health and safety industry has started to recognise the problems associated with poor posture and manual handling among young people. I was thrilled to be asked to help Cardinus address these issues, so to win this award from our peers in the States is a tremendous achievement. It’s amazing.”

The past few years have seen a significant increase in the number of children showing signs of musculoskeletal disorder with more than 72 per cent of primary school children suffering back or neck pain in the last 12 months. An increasing number of children are requiring NHS treatment and taking medication.

Almost all of these problems can be attributed to the dramatic rise in children’s use of computers, smartphones, games consoles and iPad-style tablet devices. Poor posture when working and relaxing with technology is also a major contributing factor and the need to carry heavy school bags also plays its part.

In delivering the Attendees’ Choice Award, Walter Charnizon, managing director of ErgoExpo said, “We are especially proud of the Attendees’ Choice Award. We go to great lengths to ask attendees to evaluate the products for themselves: to feel them, sample them, or to witness live demonstrations of them and to ask all of the questions they feel are necessary in order to truly evaluate the product from an end user’s perspective. I believe it represents the collective voice of the ergonomics industry. Congratulations to Cardinus. It really is an honour to be proud of.”