OHSEI trains Thai Professional Safety Officers
Thai legislation requires companies with 50 or more workers to employ a properly trained, full-time Professional Safety Officer. In a move to improve the skills of Professional Safety Officers NICE (National Institute for the Improvement of Working Conditions and Environment) in the Department of Labour has encouraged the creation of Provincial Guilds of Professional Safety Officers. Members of these Guilds meet regularly to exchange experiences. They also meet annually as a national Guild during National Safety Week. 

OHSEI has begun a Trainer training project with one provincial Guild (SSOG based in Samut Prakharn, an industrial province close to Bangkok).
The SSOG project

A key objective of the project is for the twenty-one participants from eighteen different companies to become part-time Trainers for the SSOG. These Trainers, it is expected, will conduct training programs for supervisors in member companies. The supervisors will be trained to be more concerned about and active in improving occupational health and safety outcomes. 

Further training will be developed for supervisors who are members of joint occupational health and safety committees. This training will complement that being carried out by trade union Trainers, trained by OHSEI, for worker members of union and joint occupational health and safety committees. 
Other training activities will be targeted to Professional Safety Officers in the more than 500 companies that are members of SSOG, and to increasing membership. The more than 7,000 companies in the Province employ more than 600,000 workers. Perhaps one third of the companies employ 50 or more workers.
Apart from carrying out training for SSOG the Trainers will be expected to conduct training in their own places of work.
OHSEI's approach to Trainer training

The Trainer training program (adapted for the SSOG) emphasises using active learning methods. In the first (of two one-week residential) Modules the participants learnt and practiced leading discussion and presenting active learning sessions. Many active learning methods are discussed, demonstrated and then practiced by the participants. 

The first activity in the course calls for participants to introduce themselves using a visual aid. This activity not only helps all involved to learn a little of the background and experience of the participants, it also gives some indication of the presentation skills (oral and visual) of the participants.
Five women participants attended Module 1. Seven of the participants had a Bachelor degree in Occupational health and safety. Twelve had taken the alternative 180-hour training course. Two were involved with management of occupational health and safety.
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No lectures
Participants are discouraged from lecturing. Using open, undirected questions is seen as a key tool to establishing what experience and participants bring with them. Further questions can be used to encourage participants to think about other relevant issues before participants and Trainer organise the whole in a systematic way to improve understanding. Where necessary a short talk may add information of which participants are unaware. 
Acknowledging participants and taking many responses is another learning technique that is encouraged. Listening carefully to the responses of participants indicates their views are important, making training easier.

Small groups are used extensively in OHSEI's active learning courses. Taking reports from the groups and consolidating the ideas generated can strengthen analytical skills and lead to a better result than each group report taken on its own. 

Wherever possible reports are taken in sections allowing all groups to add ideas for that section before moving on to the next section that will be started by another group. This approach maintains interest and improves the ability to recognise similarities and differences in ideas presented by different groups.
One method of taking group reports and for developing checklists is to have the groups write their responses on cards -one idea to a card. The cards are then pasted on a wall using blue-tac. This allows participants to organise the ideas in appropriate and logical ways.

Trainers on OHSEI courses are encouraged to make appropriate use of visual aids. Appropriate means being aware of themselves as a visual aid communicating by their attitudes and stance as much as with words. It also means not letting the visual aids dominate the training activity, especially not allowing it to force the Trainer into lecturing.

No practice after Module 1, no attend Module 2
A consistent part of OHSEI's approach is that participants on Trainer training courses must practice the skills they have learnt and observed during their training. These practices take place both within the course itself and after the training. Where there are several Modules partiicipants must practice the skills before attending the next Module, or, after the final Module, before receiving their Certificate of Competence. All practices are observed by OHSEI. This often involves a lot of weekend work and travel for Thai courses.

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