Human and Animal Food Laboratory Professionals Curriculum Framework

APHL worked with the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA's) Office of Training Education and Development and a team of subject matter experts to build the Laboratory Curriculum Framework, a competency-based guide to training and assessment for human and animal food laboratory professionals. The goal of the framework is a competent laboratory workforce doing comparable work as part of an Integrated Food Safety System. 

The curriculum framework is a career-spanning, visual schematic of the human and animal food laboratory profession. It was developed in tandem with another FDA curriculum development project for regulatory program professionals, the National Curriculum Standard.

The curriculum framework is being used for:

• Training development (courses and other learning events)
• Career development
• Cataloging existing training
• Competency assessment

The framework spans five professional levels and depicts the content areas in which laboratory professionals must possess competencies (i.e., knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors and attributes) to successfully perform their job functions.

• Entry
• Mid
• Expert 
• Supervisor/manager
• Senior administration

• Core (applying to all laboratory professionals) 
• Program-specific, applying to laboratory professionals specializing in:
  • Chemistry (shaded in purple)
  • Microbiology (shaded in green)
  • Special testing (shaded in pink)
• Cross-cutting:
  • Leadership 
  • Quality Managers

The Laboratory Curriculum Framework Work Group has created the following blueprint documents to serve as guides for those looking to evaluate competency, either self-evaluation or as a supervisor. The framework content areas and competency statements are regularly reviewed and updated (as needed) to remain current. The documents below are subject to change and will be updated with the most current version.