What is ICPHSO?

October 2021

Who We Are:

 Founded in 1993 by high level CPSC officials (including Ross Koeser and David Schmeltzer), state and local regulators, industry representatives, consumer representatives and others who saw the benefit in assembling stakeholders in neutral locations for training, education, and networking opportunities

ICPHSO (Ick-Fa-So) is a global (NGO) non-profit membership organization that attracts health and safety professionals throughout the world.  ICPHSO meetings are open to all and not just members.  Members do receive benefits that non-members do not receive.

Participants:

         ICPHSO includes global regulators from such authorities as

• PROFECO (Mexico), Health Canada (Canada), CPSC (USA) , ACCC (Australia), European Commission, European Union, METI and NITE (Japan), KATS and KCA (South Korea), OPSS (United Kingdom),  and others;
• Manufacturers, importers, distributors, retailers;
• Consumer advocacy groups and individual representatives;
• Parental advocacy groups;
• Trade associations, certification/testing laboratories; standards writing organizations; NGO’s;
• Law firms, consultants, health educators, academia, media, and others.

ICPHSO is a volunteer run organization.  It is  led by an Executive Director, who is responsible for the day-to-day activities of the organization with support from an Association Management Company (AMC), who provides expertise with meeting planning, budget, and back-office support for membership organizations.  ICPHSO has a volunteer Board of Directors and an Executive Committee who determine basic policies and approve the budget in accordance with the bylaws of the organization.  All Board Members must apply for the position and can serve up to two, three-year terms.  Existing Board Members are selected to fulfil positions on the Executive Committee (President, President Elect, Vice President, Treasurer, Past President and Secretary (Executive Director).  The Executive Committee provides day to day direct guidance to the Executive Director and AMC support staff.

WHAT WE DO:

Activities

Provides program and information in a non-partisan neutral forum in an effort to advance consumer product safety among all stakeholders on a global basis to promote safer consumer products around the world.   Website – www.icphso.org

Annual Training Meetings

• Four-day Annual Symposium, last week in February – every two years in Orlando, Florida and every third year in Washington, D.C. area.
• One day North America training workshop in a different city often hosted by an ICPHSO member in North America in June. Previous meetings were hosted by St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO; Home Depot, Atlanta, GA; , McDonald’s, Chicago, IL;Amazon, Seattle, WA;Toys R’ Us. Paramus, NJ, Health Canada, Toronto, Canada.
• Two-day International meeting in October/November in a different international location each year.Every second year we meet in Brussels, Belgium and participate in the European Commission’s International Product Safety Week Activities. Previous locations include Tokyo, Japan; Seoul, South Korea; London, England; Billund, Denmark; Beijing, China, Dublin, Ireland.

Collaborative Meetings/Conferences with Other Organizations

• ASTM one day meetings on specific safety related issues
• Power Hour follow up discussions post conference to explore additional issues related to various sessions presented during our conferences.

Career Center

• Provide an online job posting and listing service for product safety and health professionals. Members receive additional discounts for posting available jobs. No cost for job seekers to use the career center

Sponsorship and Exhibitor Services

• Provides opportunities for stakeholders to give information about services and goods that are beneficial to members and stakeholders attending ICPHSO events

Scholarship Program

• ICPHSO provides the sole international forum for consumer product safety. Therefore, making sure that all stakeholders can participate regardless of their resources is an important goal that furthers the richness and breadth of our meetings. ICPHSO is proud to offer scholarships to our meetings for those who would not otherwise be able to attend.

Why Do We Need ICPHSO:

• Provides opportunities for often competing and adversarial product safety stakeholders to meet in neutral locations to discuss emerging safety issues, best practices, share ideas and solutions for often complex product safety problems, as well as provide networking opportunities under a less stressful environment.
• Provides stakeholder inclusion and diversity within the product safety community to ensure all stakeholders have an equal voice in product safety.