Peer training of safety-related skills to institutional staff: benefits for trainers and trainees

A peer training program, in which experienced staff trained new staff, was evaluated as a method for teaching and maintaining safety-related caregiver skills in an institutional setting for the developmentally disabled. Three sets of safety-type skills were assessed in simulated emergency situations: responding to facility fires, managing aggressive attacks by residents, and assisting residents during convulsive seizures. Using a multiple-baseline research design, results indicated that the peer training program was an effective method of training the three types of emergency skills to new direct care staff. The program also appeared effective in improving the skills of the peer trainers. Perhaps most importantly, results indicated that if experienced staff functioned as peer trainers for particular emergency skills, then their proficiency in those skills maintained over time whereas their proficiency declined in emergency skills for which they did not act as peer trainers. Social validity information collected from available staff 23 months after the program was completed supported the utility of the training in terms of staff responses during actual emergencies. Also, acceptability measures indicated that staff liked participating in the program. However, some inconsistencies between staff verbal reports and performance-based measures of acceptability were noted. Results are discussed regarding the overall effectiveness of the peer training program, the importance of maintenance strategies for safety-related skills, and the need for multidimensional analyses of staff acceptability in staff training/management research.