Under a new law passed in 2018, employers must offer yearly sexual harassment prevention training required by the State of New York. All employees and Board members need to attend the training.  Volunteers and interns are strongly encouraged to take the training.  Any employee or Board member who does the training through another employer does NOT need to duplicate the effort—just show your completion certificate to your director or other person you’ve designated for tracking compliance.  The initial deadline for compliance was October 9, 2019.

In the summer of 2019, CEFLS offered some live training session, but there is another option for those who couldn’t attend: a FREE online certification.  This is a course prepared by New York City and has a few points that go further than State law requires, but it does meet all State requirements.  Once completed you will be able to print a certificate of completion.  It takes about 45 minutes to complete the course. Find it at the following link:

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/sexual-harassment-training.page  (Scroll to the bottom of the page—the training is available in both English and Spanish.)

You do not need to report attendance to CEFLS—each library should maintain those records for their employees and board members. Training will need to be completed each year.

Each employer must also have a Sexual Harassment Prevention policy. See Combating Sexual Harassment in the Workplace from New York State for how to create a policy that meets the requirements.

See https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LAB/201-G for the text of the law.