National Environmental Health Assoc. (neha) Food Safety Capacity Building Through Integrated Food Safety System (ifss) Training

Project SummaryThe National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) submits this proposal to the Food andDrug Administration's (FDA), Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA), Office of ResourceManagement (ORM), Division of Human Resource Development (DHRD), Funding OpportunityAnnouncement Number: RFA-FD-15-039. NEHA is seeking funding for developing andimplementing critically needed training for state, local, territorial, and tribal food safety agencies.The goal of the FDA/DHRD Cooperative Agreement Grant is to provide access to more trainingfor regulators as part of an integrated food safety system (IFSS). NEHA will present aframework that will enable state and local agencies to easily receive FDA-sanctioned coursesunder IFSS food programs, as well as supporting the efforts of FDA by maintaining trainingrecords for course participants and instructors, and issuing course certificates to those whosuccessfully complete training.Funding through the FDA/DHRD Cooperative Agreement will be used to examine currenttraining needs for IFSS food and feed inspectors and regulators and evaluate the impact andsuccess of those courses based on continual feedback from both instructors and trainees. Asdetermined by the responses, additional courses will be created to identify specific agencyrelated training needs to meet program standards.Funding will allow NEHA to develop train-the-trainer programs to ensure that instructors meetFDA-identified competencies. Instructors will be audited on an even basis to measure alignmentwith the competencies and the ongoing needs of the IFSS national curriculum standards.Moving forward beyond the term of this cooperative agreement, NEHA plans to invest in andmaintain the course content and instructional infrastructures it develops as part of theagreement. In order to support these costs, NEHA would implement revenue-generating modelsfor delivering the content. Because the Association is focused on and committed to the foodsafety industry and regulatory communities, any content developed under this cooperativeagreement would fit seamlessly into NEHA's broad food safety course offerings.As the only association whose sole focus is environmental health, NEHA is uniquely positionedto represent the professional who will benefit most from this cooperative agreement.NEHA is requesting funding in the amount of $1,000,000 per year for a five-year cooperativeagreement. Please contact Rance Baker at 303-756-9090, ext. 306 or at rbaker@neha.org.