Abstract
A competency training program for international public health laboratories was designed by detailing all biosafety tasks in the context of working laboratory procedures. The list of biosafety tasks was used to develop practical, laboratory-based training checklists that can be used to demonstrate individual competencies across multiple trainers. Because of the intensive nature of the training, in this program, we employed two types of trainers: The Biosafety Instructor and the Laboratory Trainer and we expanded the number of trainers to include a Laboratory Trainer in each laboratory. This Train-the-Trainer course defines a step-by-step process to establish competency training programs in a facility. In the Biosafety Instructor training program, biosafety officers and laboratory managers are trained alongside each other as trainers. This type of program establishes facility-specific, quality-controlled training programs that promote the transfer of biosafety working procedures from the classroom to the laboratory. The program design gives the Laboratory Manager, Biosafety Officer, and biosafety committee ownership in the biosafety program, establishing a role for the laboratory manager as a Laboratory Trainer and encouraging a culture of biosafety within the facility.