Education and Training Frameworks (FRAME)
Issues in the food and agriculture sector are increasingly complex and require the combined skills of multidisciplinary response teams. To address these multifaceted issues, we need a workforce training in specific cross-sectoral competencies that enable sectors to work together in an effective way to strengthen global efforts.
Comprehensive, interactive online frameworks (FRAMEs) recommend training opportunities for team members to complete in order to prepare for efficient multidisciplinary responses. The training frameworks provide a vision for national preparedness system by guiding the development of a skilled cadre of emergency responders through a framework of individualized career development opportunities through high quality, standardized training.
Animal & Agriculture Emergency Response Education and Training Framework
The United States food and agriculture systems are vulnerable. Disease, pests, or poisonous agents that occur naturally, are unintentionally introduced, or are intentionally delivered by an act of terrorism are all possible attacks to our food supply. Because these systems are extensive, open, interconnected, diverse, and complex in their structure, they are potential targets for terrorist attacks. An attack against these systems could have catastrophic health and economic effects. Within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and more broadly across the Federal Interagency, greater emphasis is needed to enhance common understanding and agreement on requirements and capabilities expected in the area of agriculture and food defense.
Animal agriculture stakeholders ranging from federal government officials to primary producers in the food industry all need emergency management competencies that align to serve the national preparedness system. High quality training is needed to prepare for, prevent, mitigate, respond to, and recover from an emergency in the animal agriculture sector, and individuals need an intuitive way to navigate training resources.
In collaboration with Department of Homeland Security Office of Health Affairs (OHA) Food, Agriculture and Veterinary Defense Branch (FAVD Branch), FPDI created a comprehensive training framework for animal agriculture emergency responders. The purpose of this interactive online framework is to recommend training opportunities for every emergency responder in an Incident Command System so they may be prepared to complete the tasks needed for efficient response during an animal agriculture emergency. The training framework will serve the vision of the national preparedness system by guiding the development of a skilled cadre of emergency responders, and it will offer a framework for an individual to plot out career development opportunities in emergency response through high quality, standardized training.
Animal Emergency FRAME Goals
FPDI will lead a highly collaborative effort between federal agencies, state agencies, educational consortia, and subject matter experts to achieve the goals below:
● Create requirements for a training framework in animal agriculture emergency response.
● Catalog existing training resources for animal agriculture emergency response competency.
● Align existing resources to better serve the national preparedness system.
● Build an online interactive framework platform for training pathways and resources.
● Identify opportunities for creating new curriculum and courses to fill gaps
One Health Framework for Workforce Resilience (OH-FRAME)
Issues at the animal-human-environmental interface are increasingly complex and require the combined skills of multidisciplinary response teams. To address these multifaceted issues, we need a workforce that is training in specific cross-sectoral competencies that enable sectors to work together in an effective way to strengthen global efforts.
The One Health Competency Framework for Workforce Resilience (OH-FRAME) is a capability co-developed by the University of Minnesota and U.S. Department of Agriculture in collaboration with international partners to provide a framework linking sector-specific (e.g. OIE Day One Competencies) and One Health competencies. This framework has been organized into a matrix of skills needed by members of a multidisciplinary response team, accessible through a user-friendly online tool. OH-FRAME emphasizes training that, from the most basic level to career pinnacle, encourages individual career building and professional development both within a technical discipline as well as across the sectors.
Additionally, the OH-FRAME tool allows countries to quantify and track its capabilities (such as laboratories) as well as see comprehensive picture of the training status of their workforce. It also encourages all workers to add to sector-specific technical skill proficiency that may assist organizations and agencies seeking to monitor and evaluate country-level capacity by recording workforce progress through the framework.
OH-FRAME promotes highly collaborative efforts to:
● Align courses and training goals by recommended competencies for a technical role
○ Organizations can customize positions and course recommendations
○ Organizations can include users that may or may not be in their existing Learning Management System
○ Supports just-in-time training courses
● Enable users to document and manage their training and experience records in one place providing a complete and portable profile of activity
● Implement dashboard and reporting features to provide an organization or country with an overview of their capabilities and training gaps
For more information on FRAME, please contact the FoodSHIELD Coordinator at coordinator@foodshield.org.