I am looking at how we can develop our employee competence levels in a number of H&S areas. One option is to buy in using a number of train the trainer sessions, the other is to take develop in house PTLLS competence and design in house courses.

Most of the train the trainer courses seem to involve overlap in that they all cover some instructional techinque and I have seen some that actually combined the subject and intructional tarining in one course.(ie first aid at work + PTLLS combined)

During my time in a training environment (reserve forces) the widely held view was that if you know how to train (teach). Then you can teach any subject so long as you have the relevant subject knowledge.

Has anyone tried this approach or indeed is it feasible?

Bob, Thanks for the input.

I am not sure that using the first aid trainer / PTLLS course was such a good example as there appear to be other issues with doing this training inhouse, namely approval as a training provider (not something we were looking and quite costly). The HSE's First Aid Approval and Monitoring Service's Expert is not available at this time to give a definitive answer but I hope for one on Monday.

What would you consider 'considerable duration'? There area a number of organisations with accreditation / approval, delivering 5 day combined FA trainer / PTLLS courses (albeit with the prerequisite that you already hold a valid FaW qualification).

To clarify I am talking about the CIEH (or equivalent)level 3 PTLLS (typically 5 days). Given the relative costs against say the CIEH Level 3 TPS I think there are sound reasons to aim for the former. If for example I have the competency in Manual handling, DSE, Risk assessment, compressed gases safety etc. I can develop courses in these areas rather than having to send individuals on specific courses. I believe we can significantly reduce our training costs and better demonstrate compliance but wanted to make sure I was not missing any obvious pitfall.

Regards Jon

Imho if you have successfully completed a Train the Trainer course, designed to ensure you can deliver training, then there is nothing stopping you delivering a "course". This is providing you follow the criteria for the subject matter, i.e Manual Handling etc, etc.
The train the Trainer course teaches you how to deliver and structure training and how to present thematerial logically.

Thanks all,

you've more or less confirmed my thoughts

1. If we have a competent 'trainer' he can deliver across his skill set (in our case basic MH, DSE, risk assessment)
2. CIEH level 3 TPS or equivalent is sufficient but PTLLS (in my view) would add value (hopefully a better training experience)
3. It's an 'all eggs in one basket' but in the long run (for us) more cost effective than buying in or send staff on external courses
4. Make us more flexible for delivery of induction and refresher training.
5. FAW was a red herring - even if you do the FAW trainer course you can't train other FAW courses unless you have HSE approval - too costly! But they can deliver basic FA training to others to supplement that of the Qualified FAW) (see a related post on first aid).

Once again thanks