The 2016 TRAIN Affiliate Consortium (TAC) Annual Meeting brought together over 55 public health professionals to discuss workforce development and TRAIN, the national learning network for training professionals who protect and improve the public’s health. TAC is comprised of 28 state and federal agencies—known as TRAIN affiliates—that have administrative access to the TRAIN Learning Management System (LMS) platform and operate branded TRAIN web portals. The meeting was sponsored by the Public Health Foundation (PHF) and hosted by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Meeting sessions demonstrated how TRAIN supports public health accreditation (specifically Domain 8 and Domain 9), best practices in developing quality online learning content and evaluation questions, and ways that TRAIN states and federal agencies can collaborate on trainings to address emerging threats such as the Zika virus. Additionally, the meeting included a demonstration of new features and functionality that will be included in the initial phase of the new TRAIN platform, which is scheduled to be released in late summer 2016. These and other sessions provided attendees with new workforce development strategies and opportunities to collaborate across their agencies and organizations, helping to create a stronger, more prepared public health system.
Representatives from 20 of the 28 TRAIN affiliates along with national partners, attended the three-day meeting. Participating representatives from agencies and organizations that focus on workforce training and development in the public health and preparedness sectors included:
- Advanced Distributed Learning (ADLNet)
- ChangeLab Solutions
- de Beaumont Foundation
- National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)
- National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools (NCCMT)
- National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI)
- North Carolina Institute for Public Health (NCIPH)
- Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR)
- Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)
- Region 2 Public Health Training Center
- Wichita State University
If your organization is interested in learning more about the TRAIN learning network, contact the Public Health Foundation’s TRAIN team.