Métiers prévention

The next chapters look at each course with the purpose of classifing a few French courses in the field of risk.

• The themes offered determine the profile of the course

Four main themes of knowledge and action can be offered in these courses : protect the operator (a person), protect a population (a group of people), protect the ecosystem (nature), protect the installation (artificial establishment made by man, whether fixed or mobile).

• The themes retained have been defined from the danger targets that one tries to protect. Each of the former is the object of a great many courses (1) (2) (3) which can be developed around the presentation of the knowledge and skills of many scientific and technical disciplines.

- To protect the operator in a work situation, to safeguard his hygiene, safety, health, one can rely on : Ergonomy, Hygiene and Safety at work, Occupational Hygiene, the Analysis of Work Conditions, Work law, Toxicology, Industrial Epidemiology, Work Psychology or Sociology, Occupational Medecine…

- To protect the population, to safeguard its safety and health one can rely on : Hygiene and Public Health, Civilian Protection, the Protection of the industrial environment, Epidemiology, Medecine for catastrophes, Sanitary engineering…

- To protect the ecosystem, its safety, health one can rely on : the Protection of the environment, Applied ecology, Environmental Law, Ecotoxicology…

- To protect the installation, human establishments one can rely on : Dependability, Safety of the installations, Human reliability, Safety of premises…

• Each group of disciplines here above mentioned prepares people for jobs that have as fondamental view-point the protection of a target ; but each discipline does this differently. A risk problem can be solved in many a way by using discipline problematics and methods of action that differ a lot one from the other. The question asked about the risk can, on the other hand, make us prefer to use one of them that would master knowledge or tools more appropriate than others to answer the question.

- For example Ergonomy is interested in the safety problems of operators, and centers its analysis and action on the actual activity of the latter (the target) whereas Safety at work, that is more engineering, insists on the identification and analysis of malfunctions at installation level (the danger source). The latter, animated by legal and normative problematics, sets up technico-legal means of action. Ergonomy insists on socio-organisational means of action to control and manage problems.

- This plurality of discipline problematics enables us to understand the diversity of attitudes among professions that set them up, how partitioned they can be and how difficult it can be for the various specialists to communicate. These elements are slowing down trans-professionalism.

Broadly speaking we can say that the content of the course offered depends on the role played (or that will be played) by the person trained within its firm : a catastrophe doctor will not have been trained the same way as an engineer from D.R.I.R.E. to manage major technological risks.

• The type of course chosen determines the personal cursus of the person trained

Whatever the profiles of the course, two types of cursus are offered : “initial training” or “continuous training”.

• Initial training is made of school or university courses in the field of risk. These courses lead to a diploma.

All levels of training on this theme presently exist in France from initiation in secondary education to qualifying specialised courses : Diplôme Universitaire de Technologie (D.U.T.), Maîtrises des Sciences et Techniques (M.S.T.), Doctorate Third cycle (Thesis).

Nevertheless one can sort out two very different types of initial training :

- cursus that integrate skills in the field of risk to theoretical and professional lectures at all levels (D.U.T., M. Sc, Chartered Engineer Schools…). The transmission of these skills ensures a better vocational value of the students than for those that have been in Chemical engineering where they train students in safety and/or in the protection of the environment in the field of chemistry ;

- initial cursus to train specialists in the field of risks. For example a Safety Engineer School or “M.S.T.” in Ergonomy.

• Continuous training in the field of risk is, by definition, qualifying training for all kind of professionals that wish to initiate themselves, to change job to work in this domain ; but also to specialise, to widen or update their knowledge on some specific points in the field of risk. Many training organisations (I.N.R.S., I.N.E.R.I.S., I.N.S.T.N., C.N.A.M., enterprizes, universities) respond to this demand. Based on these objectives one can identify hundreds of courses in France that are meant for any category of staff in enterprizes or administrations. Some “Diplôme d’Etudes Supérieures Spécialisées” (D.E.S.S.) accept students in continuous or initial training : they offer then both a qualification and a diploma.

• In most cases, initial training courses for specialists in each of the fields of risk present wider information than for the courses integrated in theoritical and professional initial training. Continuous training courses are shorter than those for specialist initial training (except for C.N.A.M. courses). And yet, whether they have had initial or continuous training, whether they are specialists or non-specialists, all the actors in the field of risk have to work together to better identify, assess, control, manage locally or generally concrete problems that arise. These actors perceive differently the problems. This comes from the fact that their cursus were different as well as/or their professional or personal achievements.

• The objective of the course determines the profile of the person trained

• The objectives of a training course (whether initial or continuous) depend a lot on the jobs or competences they prepare you for. Schematically, these courses can be listed into two groups : courses said to give you “a double competency” and courses “for specialists that will have a competency in the field of risk alone”.

• In a “double competency” course the objective is to teach, at the end of a classical discipline cursus (or during professional life), the risk problems related to it. In fact this is more professionalisation in the initial domaine of competency by adding skills in the fiels of risk (complementarity secondary competency). It is then suggested to “nurture” the initial competency by showing that the latter can induce hazards and contribute to control them. Problematics, methods and tools are then taught, that the student is likely to assimilate because he has had prior training in his discipline. The themes approached, the skills and the actions presented in the field of risk are then fragmentary. According to one’s original discipline (training in the main competency) and to the place the person is going to take in his/her firm (executing job, technician, engineer, supervisor…) it is decided to treat such and such skills or action in the risk field : the ones he/she will have to implement to succeed in his/her job. In other cases, the second competency acquired during the training can be very far from the main competency of the trained person : for example when the latter wishes to change job. These qualifying courses, or leading to a diploma, are numerous (continuous training in enterprizes, D.E.S.S., and european “post graduate” courses).

The objective of courses to “become specialists in the field of risk” is to assimilate, within the cursus of a long specific course, the skills, methods and tools to identify, assess, control, manage locally or generally mentioned previously (the operator, the population, the ecosystem, the installation). In these courses, the themes dealt with, the skills and actions to carry out in the field of risk are presented in a more exhaustive and more structured way than in “double competency” courses. They train the person for the main competency in the field of risk.

• The pedagogical problematic of the course determines the type of knowledge and skills to apply in one’s job

Whatever the above mentioned criteria are, two different pedagogical problematics can be set up to develop a course in the field of risk :

the problematics of a course to train specialists (specialized approach),

the problematics of a course to train generalists (generalized approach).

• The specialist approach consists in starting from identified scientific knowledge to apply it to one particular risk. Two layers of knowledge and skills must then be assimilated by the trained person : the layer of basic science (or sciences) and the one of its application(s) in the field of risk as applied science(s). For example a course for work psychologists is made of training in Psychology and training of the latter applied to work situations. Specialists in particular fields of risk are trained like this.

• The generalist approach is more ambitions. It differenciates three or four layers of knowledge and skills that have to be assimilated by the trained person, insisting on the integration of these skills, each one with the others.

- Just like the training of specialists, the first layer is made of basic scientific knowledge, the second of knowledge and skills issued from applied Science(s). The third layer of knowledge must integrate information coming from many applied Sciences so as to set forh the knowledge and skills of a danger Technique. For example : to acquire skills in one particular danger Technique (Ergonomy) one has to integrate knowledge in Applied Sciences (work Psychology, work Physiology, work Sociology, Engineering…) that have their own roots in the knowledge of basic Sciences (Psychology, Physiology, Sociology, Physics,…).

- In the last few years, courses have been set up, that develop systemic pedagogical problematics. They are structured around a 4th transversal layer of knowledge and skills. Some authors associate, in a Science of Danger (4) all the problematics and methodologies common to the numerous danger Techniques (Ergonomy, Safety at work, applied Ecology, Dependability…) or inter-mingle, from a new axiomatic approach, the Cindynics (5 and 6).

- All the generalist courses insist on the mode of integration of the knowledge and on the general means of identification, analysis, control and management of the malfunctions of systems. They train specialists in a generalistic approach in the field of risk.

• In fact, existing courses are positioned on a ?? between the specialist approach, where disciplinarity and specialization dominate and the generalist approach, where pluridisciplinarity and generalisation dominate. Generalist courses in the field of risk favour trans-professionalization because they center their pedagogy on the global approaches (more or less unitary) of knowledge and skills issued from varied disciplinary fields.

• A suggestion to classify a few courses in the field of risk

The courses chosen have been selected so as to illustrate the full range of the types defined here above. Figure 2 presents the courses : the name of the course is mentioned, where it is run, the level of recruting and the global period during which the course is run. Figure 3 classifies these courses by using criteria that have been defined in the previous chapters.

N°	Name of the course	Place	Level of recruting - duration
1	D.U.T. Hygiène & Sécurité	I.U.T. de Bordeaux, Colmar, Lorient, Paris, Marseille	Bac 2 years
2	Ecole d’Ingénieur P.R.I.H.S.E. Prévention des Risques Industriels : Hygiène, Sécurité et Environnement	I.S.T.G. - Université J. Fourier Grenoble	1st cycle (2 years at University) 3 years
3	Mastère de Sécurité Industrielle et d’Environnement	Ecole des Mines Alès	Engineer 1 year
4	Mastère de Sûreté et Prévention des Risques Technologiques Majeurs	Ecole Centrale Paris	Bac + 5 ou engineer 1 year
5	Ingénieur du Génie Sanitaire	Ecole Nationale de la Santé Publique - Environnement et Santé - Rennes	Prep school - 1st cycle 3 years (2 + 1 of specialization)
6	D.E.S.S. Maîtrise et Gestion de l’Environnement Industriel	Université J. Fourier - Grenoble	MST, engineer 1 year
7	M.S.T. Ergonomie	Université d’Orsay - Orsay	1st cycle - 2 years
8	Filières Ergonomie et Neurosciences du Travail et Hygiène & Sécurité du Travail	C.N.A.M. Paris, Provinces	Level bac 7 to 10 years to become an engineer
9	D.U. “Technicien Assistant de Médecine du Travail”	Université Paul Sabatier - Toulouse	Nurses 2 years
10	D.E.S.S. de Psychologie du Travail	Université Bordeaux II - Bordeaux	Master’s in Psychology - 1 year
11	D.E.S.S. de Psychologie du Travail et d’Ergonomie des Systèmes Complexes	Université Bordeaux II - Bordeaux	Master’s 1 year

Figure 2 : Presentation of a few French courses in the field of risk

Abstract
Four classification criteria for the hundreds of training courses to prevention jobs are presented here. The choice of the training theme, its type, the objectives aimed at and the pedagogical issues explain the variety of skills and jobs in the field of risks.