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UFCW Canada goes the distance with online course

Blend some expertly developed UCFW Canada courseware with the latest in on-line learning and what you get is a Safe Food Handling (SFH) course that could soon be delivered to just about anywhere in Canada.

UFCW Canada’s National Training and Education Department created this “digital” distance education SFH to Go! course with funding assistance from the National Literacy Secretariat.

SFH to Go! combines the best of two earlier National Training and Education initiatives: a 2002 on-line project offering introductory distance education computer courses to Ontario members of UFCW Canada and a classroomdelivered SFH course developed in 2001. The classroom SFH course was developed using clear language to make it more accessible to a wide range of members.

“The goal is for SFH to Go! to be available to any member who needs it”.

Clear language was also a priority in the year-long development of SFH to GO! This newly developed course is now being piloted on-line with a crosssection of UFCW Canada members working in hospitality, retail food, and institutional kitchens to evaluate the effectiveness of on-line distance education for students with literacy and/or ESL challenges. Feedback from the pilot phase will be used to enhance the new course and allow the project team to evaluate how to best deliver an on-line course made up of sector-specific content.

“The goal is for SFH to Go! to be available to any member who needs it,” says UFCW Canada’s national director Michael J. Fraser. “The course gives our members all the fundamentals of safe food handling and it will be a tremendous resource for our members preparing for their Food Handler certification test.”

Bryan Neath is the co-ordinator of UFCW Canada’s National Training and Education Department. “The convenience of the course is a big plus”, says Neath. “Students can connect to it any time of day to suit their own schedule. For members in remote areas where there is no training centre, SFH to Go! will give them equal access to great training about a subject everybody is concerned about these days.”

“Following the pilot phase,” says UFCW Canada Training and Education representative Susan Jones, “we’ll be using the feedback from our pilot participants to make SFH to Go! even more user-friendly and effective. The experience,” says Jones, “will also be used to help us develop other on-line courses for UFCW Canada members working in other sectors.”