Self Help

MIOSHA’s Consultation Education and Training (CET) division offers FREE assistance identifying and correcting potential safety and health hazards in the workplace. The Self-Help Program is operated independently from the MIOSHA Enforcement Program. By assisting private sector employers in supplementing existing employee exposure assessments and evaluations, CET seeks to aid employers in voluntarily complying with MIOSHA regulations and establishing effective safety and health programs.

Eligibility
The Self-Help program is designed to assist small employers, typically with 250 employees or less employees. The best candidates for Self-Help services are employers who have recently had a health hazard survey (walkthrough) performed, in addition to employers who have had CET industrial hygienists conduct exposure monitoring in their workplace previously. The Self-Help program is not available to residential clients, county health departments, or private consultants. Each self-help request received will be reviewed by an On-Site Consultation Program industrial hygienist to determine applicability and how best to assist the employer. Self-Help requests from eligible employers to participate in the Self-Help Program will only be accepted once within a three-year period.

As administered by MIOSHA CET industrial hygienists, the Self-Help program is a free program designed to supplement an employer’s overall, occupational health workplace evaluations. The Self-Help program can provide employers with:

• Free use of equipment for monitoring employee exposures, and
• Free analytical services for the analysis of employee exposure samples collected with the loaned equipment.

To participate in the Self-Help program employers must agree to reduce over-exposure that has been determined, by use of the loaned equipment, to below MIOSHA standard specified exposure limits. Once an employer has agreed to participate an industrial hygienist will review the workplace area, how many samples should be submitted, type of exposure sampling, and how to use the equipment. Only the simpler types of exposure monitoring samples will be permitted for analyses like carbon monoxide, noise, total particulates, and most organic vapors air contaminants. Self-help assistance will not include any samples that require additional handling or special handling (i.e., silica, isocyanates, hexavalent chromium, etc.).

Self-Help services are designed to supplement existing hazard assessments and may not be appropriate for an initial assessment to determine employee exposures compared to established occupational exposure limits. In these instances, our highly trained professional staff can perform the free exposure monitoring service for the employer.

Contact Us
For more information on the Self-Help program, or to have a CET Industrial Hygienist conduct free exposure monitoring for you, please complete a Request for Consultation Assistance by visiting www.michigan.gov/cetrca.