Oral Culture Train the Trainer - Project Summary/Abstract For the last 5 years, BCPH has been involved in an Oral Culture learner project. This project was based off research conducted by Dr. Donna Beagle, which supports the notion that food handlers learn better by presenting information orally rather than through printed materials. This project has led to major changes in our Food Safety training, as well as printed materials, which are now primarily picture based. While we have improved our overall trainings, one lesson learned is that with frequent staff turnover, managers need to be able to provide frequent hands on training to new staff. We currently use scoring to help identify the risk presented by facilities when we do compliance inspections. Points are assigned to violations and the points increase based on the severity and overall risk of the violations observed. A score of 0 means no violations were observed. The following is a summary of the data we have collected highlighting the changes we have scene with our oral culture training for the 19 pilot sites we have been tracking. Avg. Initial Inspection Score 78; Avg. Inspection score 6 months after the training 29; Avg. Inspection score 12-18 months after the training 24; Avg. Inspection score 24-36 months after the training 18. Our proposed project is to build off our success providing oral culture learner training and create a sustainable program to provide to managers to sustain our initial efforts. The project would develop and start to pilot a train the trainer program to allow retail managers to continue to implement the oral culture learner trainings as they experience staff turnover. We know the restaurant industry faces some of the highest turnover rates of any employer category. This issue will always present ongoing challenges to implementing strong food safety training programs. We believe that a train the trainer model will help provide the tools for retail managers to ensure continuity in training knowledge among their staff.
