Preventing Foodborne Illness with the Action Guide: Food-Safe Schools Action Guide: Creating a Culture of Food Safety

The goal of the Food-Safe Schools Action Guide: Creating a Culture of Food Safety is to encourage school foodservice operators to make food-safe behaviors second nature and to reach out to others in the school community to build a food-safe school. The Action Guide provides a food safety assessment tool, links to pertinent resources, and communication strategies to gain support from food safety partners in the school community: such as school administrators, school nurses, teachers, parents, students, local health departments, emergency planners, and cooperative extension educators.

By attending this session participants will be able to explain the meaning of ‘a culture of food safety’, list communication strategies to reach school community partners, and describe the Action Guide food safety areas and resources. Achieving the learning objectives of the session and active participation in the session activity will encourage participants to collaborate with school food service operators during school visits.

Students and staff consume billions of meals and snacks each year in U.S. schools. Some children depend on school meals for a nutritious meal each day. Data analyzed to date indicate the percentage of outbreaks from schools is less than 4% of the total outbreaks nationwide, however problems do occur. Children and staff who get sick may have to be out of school. Severe cases of foodborne illness may result in death. Negative publicity from foodborne illness outbreaks undermines the confidence of parents and students in the school meals programs. Assuring the safety of food served in school meals is of utmost importance for the health of children.