Partnership for Food Safety Education

FightBAC!

Bernadette Cooks Up Food Safety Skills with Her Students

New Hampshire Teacher of the Year Bernadette Olsen teaches food and consumer science (FACS) at the David R. Cawley Middle School in Hookset, N.H. There she helps to grow students’ independent problem-solving skills in food safety and other topics.

She teaches a number of classes to the middle schoolers including the 6th grade Family and Consumer Science Exploratory Class, in which students practice safe and sanitary skills as they complete food lab cooking projects.

In her 7th grade Foods and Nutrition Class, students evaluate scientific information, learn to identify and use reliable resources, and develop skills and techniques to create nutritious, food-safe meals.

Eighth grade students study the effects of various factors on the local and world food supply, and gain an understanding of ingredient functions in the production of commercial food products. Students once again practice food-safe skills in class.

We met Bernadette this summer at the 2017 American Association of Food and Consumer Science national conference, where she was the AAFCS representative for New Hampshire.

In this video that we shot at the AAFCS expo, Bernadette tells us how she uses the Partnership’s  Story of Your Dinner with her weekly special needs class, Buddies Cooking with Peers.

Fighting BAC! in the Philippines

In the spring of 2016, BAC! Fighter Marie Josephine Paredes-Umali of Valencia, California presented Fight BAC! food safety lectures in the Philippines.  She found an audience thirsty for this information and learned that there were few readily available food safety training resources.

Paredes speaking about parasites

Invitation to become a BAC Fighter!

Mayors, government coordinators, market vendors and vendors selling RTE foods made up her large audiences. For many, this was the first time they had been exposed to any food safety training. Participants received a Fight BAC! Core Four Practices poster, with extra copies to post in schools, public health centers, markets, and homes. Marie Josephine invited each of the participants to become BAC Fighters.

Paredes students in Philipines

Food Market Audits

In Makati City, the government unit official requested a food safety audit of the Sunday Market. Marie Josephine noticed many unsafe food handling practices and commented on these during her next lecture. A few days later, she repeated the audit and noticed many positive changes. Armed with food safety information, the food vendors were ready and willing to improve their practices. The Red Cross local chapter will continue to audit the market vendors’ food handling practices.

Semi-Retired?

Though she is “semi-retired”, Marie Josephine opened an office in Manila– MJPU Foodsafety Consultancy—which will will focus on food safety education and helping the Philippines with implementation of FSMA.

Michelle Finds Birds and Bread Boost Hand-Washing

Michelle Paillou, Environmental Supervisor/Training Coordinator for the St. Louis (MO) County Health Department, is a community education specialist. Her food safety outreach ranges from operators who need a refresher at the “food school” she created, to school age kids and adults.

For grade schoolers to high school students, her presentation revolves around the familiar St. Louis Cardinals and all the food safety steps that have to be taken by the stadium food vendors before it opens.  Michelle says, “Since most of the kids know about baseball, it’s a great way to tie in public health.”

For the youngest students, Michelle talks to the kids about how to wash your hands and why it’s important. In her class, she uses three pieces of bread and asks the kids to touch one of them with unwashed hands, touch another one with washed hands, and one slice is untouched.

She next shows them the “time-lapsed” results, using “pre-treated” bread slices: the slice that was not handled and the one handled with clean hands remain uncontaminated and OK to eat. While the slice handled with dirty hands is covered with bacterial growth and looks, as the kids say, “disgusting”.

Michelle has found that this is a great visual and really makes an impact. She sometime receives notes from students after the class, thanking her for teaching them about handwashing.   Michelle tells us that she leaves them, “Singing the Happy Birthday song and washing their hands!”

 

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A Rubber Chicken and a Food Safety Lesson Learned

Jennifer Jackson is a BAC Fighter with Anne Arundel County Department of Aging and Disabilities in Annapolis, Maryland. Their newsletters, which contain food safety tips, reach an estimated 12,000 family members, caregivers, managers, nurses, and assisted living facilities.

The department also has active and creative food safety trainings for area caregivers, managers, delegating nurses, and other staff who work in assisted living facilities throughout the county, reaching about fifty each year with science-based food safety information.

One of the “stars” of the trainings is Chelsea the Chicken, a bikini clad rubber chicken who is “a diva that doesn’t like to get her swimsuit wet”. This little prop helps to bring home the message of not washing poultry in the sink.

One of the participants in the training was Abdul Abdullah, owner of two assisted living facilities in their county. Abdul said the training confirmed for him that washing poultry was not needed and actually increased food safety risk.  He had heard this before but it wasn’t until he came to the training that it was validated for him with clear, science-based information. Now he confidently shares this information with his staff and with his family members at home.

Chelsea Chicken and friends cropped
At the Make Health Happen Fair, Anne Arundel Cnt., MD. Pictured (L to R): Susan Shelton, Program Director, Chelsea the Chicken, and Carol Clemmens, Assisted Living Associate, Assisted Living and Housing Department, Anne Arundel Cnt Dept. of Aging and Disabilities.
Anne Arundel County -Jennifer Jackson and Colleagues cropped'
Pictured (L to R): Fannie Sumter, Carol Clemmens, Susan Shelton, and Jennifer Jackson, Anne Arundel Cnt Dept of Aging and Disabilities.

Personal stories motivate farm workers to follow food safety rules

California_Leafy_Greens

The California Leafy Green Handler Marketing Board (LGMA)  brings farmers together to ensure the safety of leafy greens.

The organization recently released both a new food safety training program for workers throughout the California leafy greens farming community and a new video project designed to communicate how important proper training can be to producing safe food.

The video was produced as a joint effort between the LGMA and STOP Foodborne Illness as a training tool. It uses the stories of people affectedby foodborne illness as motivation for workers to always practice proper food handling and is currently being used as part of the LGMA Tech training workshops.

You can check out the training video here:  http://youtu.be/AE9G818uJsQ