UKC

This is just continuing a discussion from a pervious post that digressed from the main point.
Should instructors have to constantly be re-assessed, say every 3 years?
From a personal point of view, I think this would present alot of problems.
Downside
Firstly re-assesment would surely have to be done for each seperate qualification. Cost of re-assesment would be probably be in around £50-£100 for days re-assesment.
So my thinking is that every 3 years some one might have to be paying for a re-assesment of First Aid, SPA, ML (summer and winter???)...
So as you can see thats quite a substancail Bill, just to maintain a qualification.

On the plus side
It means instructors have to keep there skills up todate, and so should (in theory) help to reduce accidents through mistakes.

Gives more work to the people that have to re-assess people.

I think some sort of middle ground would be more preferable, somthing along the lines of what Sports Scotland do with there coaches, in that every year a coach has to attent a minimum of 3 related coarses (i think i have this right) which is all part of the CPD (continued professional development) scheme. In the same way there could be simalar coarse such as a 1 day naviagtion coarse, 1 day anchour coarse, 1 day first aid coarse, 1 day group management coarse... etc. and with it manditory to attent 3 of these each year to maintain there instructor qualification.
Its not a perfect solution with its own problems but it would be more preferable than full re-assesment on everything and probably a good step towards improving on the current situation.

Thoughts???

In reply to smile:

Its also up to the employer (or voluntary group) deploying that individual to decide how to check that someone is still competent. Some sort of in-house moderation.

To be a member of AMI, MLTA, BAIML and the BMG you need to show that you have achieved a certain amount of CPD in a 3 year timespan. So if they are a member of their association, they can go some way to show that they are up to date.

In reply to smile:

First aid has to be renewed every three years.

Employers can ask to see you log book which should be kept up to date to prove you are current.

The middle ground you suggest is exactly what AMI, MLTA are asking their members to do to keep CPD up to date.

I know people who have got their SPA and haven't climbed since. I think compulsory CPD can only be a good thing.

In reply to smile: Remember that all of the MLT Awards are log book based and so award holders have to maintain an up to date log book to maintain the validity of their award. As Paul points out the professional associations also have CPD requirements of X days/hours per annum of accredited CPD.

In reply to oggi:

From 1st January 2011, the following minimum criteria must be complied with every 5 years in order to be a full member of MLTA:
• 20 days or 20 climbing sessions (a session is at least 3 hours in length) spent in the activity/activities for which the member holds a leadership award/s. This should include both personal and group leadership experience. Members who hold a number of MLT awards should log experience across the range of activities/terrain for which they are qualified;
Plus
• 2 Credit points to be gained from attendance at/participation in a wide range of other training/learning opportunities;
Plus
• Hold a valid First Aid Certificate

In reply to smile: Interesting one this. On one hand there are some SPA's that I have worked with in the recent past that to be frank I wouldn't trust to tie a knot of any kind. On the other hand, the issue I had trying to revalidate my BCU quals after a spell as a non-member has just put me off ever doing a course with them ever again other than their ridiculous CPD day where we just looked at different types of boats and sat looking at a screen for ages.

Not wishing to sound harsh but with MLTA membership, BCU membership, BMC (which isnt compulsary but I support whole-heartedly)etc etc it all adds up and as a freelancer who is bordering on poverty anyway it would lead me to not bothering and going and get a normal job.

It just seems to me that its just another way of getting money out of people for not very much in return!! And then theres AMI membership also!!

Well you asked!!

In reply to climber_medic:

Was that a Regional Update day? As I'm not aware of any CPD courses that involve looking at boats or even looking at a screen.

You can normally do any training course or assessment and that counts for your 3 yearly Update. Or as with a lot of the CPD requirements (Particularly MLTA) you can self-certify.



Out of those three you only have to be a member of one of them for your qualifications to be valid. I've just saved you a 1/3 of your association costs!

Did you not have to be a member of association with your other job/s? Or even (dare I say it) a union member? 9 times out of 10, I bet they didn't do much for you on a day to day basis?



What's grating you with this one? You don't have to be a member? If you are in the position to chose between MLTA or AMI, go for the one which is more relevant to you.

In reply to smile: I don't like the idea of compulsory reassessment. It's a lot of faff and expense.

I am a big fan of CPD though. I'm an MLTA and AMI member so it is now compulsory to do x amount of CPD to stay a member.

Obviously you don't need to be a member of either of the above.

I think it's up to employers to check what their employee is doing / has done.

Likewise "clients" can make their own choice by either grilling instructors before using them, or choosing an MLTA / AMI member.

Let's be honest most quality instructors will be doing CPD anyway, be it workshops, IOL stuff or the next qualification on their list.

(Please excuse my lack of BCU reference, don't like all that wet nonsense so don't now how they operate these days)

I think this would just add to the many hoops that outdoor instructors have to jump through, it feels like your spending a lot of money to make very little money.

In reply to kilner:

20 days or sessions over 5 years including personal and group experience seems like a laughably low requirement for a logbook. I trust that someone with SPA and ML has to do 20 days/sessions of each?

In reply to Paul at work: BCU. Was told that in order to re-validate my coach 2 award I would need to jump through a number of hoops. This took me a year of emailing them and trying to speak to someone at head office that actually knew what they were doing!!

As for AMI comment it was purely aimed from the expense angle.

You may now get of your high horse!!

In reply to timjones:

I assume so, I did that over a couple of months but as it has come in recently i think it is starting off easy and building up.

In reply to climber_medic:

Think that's a little unfair as Paul has just given you some sound advice and potentially saved you from finally tripping over the poverty line. Also, if you're freelancing, there's a good chance you'll bump into him anyway.

OP:I agree that CPD should be carried out, atleast in the form of maintaining an up to date logbook. I think it's more common than first appears that, as someone alluded to further up, some instructors never actually do anything once they've qualified. I know atleast one SPA and one ML who have are exactly like this.

But, then again, you can look at it another way: the qualifications are simply a demonstration of competance. There are no real 'laws' governing what you can do. If you want to take a group of 6 scouts over the Cairngorms next week, anyone can. However, when/if something goes wrong, it's going to be a lot harder to build your defense without some sort of NGB award to back you up, also, holding an ML that's not been used for 10 years probably isn't worth the paper it's written on.

I personally see it as a duty to myself to maintain my professional standards and IF cpd was compulsary, well that'd just fit in with what I do and believe other instructors should be doing anyway.

In reply to andi turner: Yes probably true, put it down to a bad day on my part.

In reply to andi turner:
>There are no real 'laws' governing what you can do. If you want to take a group of 6 scouts over the Cairngorms next week, anyone can.

true but you would need an aala licence if they were under 18 and not covered by scouts cadets etc

In reply to smile:

I think cpd is a good thing, but it should be along the lines of showing competancy by submitting logbooks every x years. There shouldn't be a requirement to attend course a or b- this is how bcu operate and many (me included) feel it's a money-making scheme!

Any cost involved in this should be encompassed in fees ml's, spa's already pay in bmc membership, or maybe an increase for those qualified of £5 per year.

Opportunities for cpd courses should be offered to all, but not be compulsory. Up to instructors to maintain their currency, as already stated above.

Only my two pence worth, and ducking for cover!!!

In reply to si_pritch: Interesting. What would be your response to the following points?

1. How does someone who is operating unsafely but maintaining logbooks become aware of their poor practice?
2. Why £5 p.a.?
3. Why bother with compulsory CPD - it's a time and cost-exercise - because when acting as a 'professional', x can develop all the skills and expertise actually doing the job?


1. Anyone can list their activities without reflecting on their practice. Is it a single day's experience repeated ad neauseum or a wide and genuine spread of experience and expertise? High quality and valuable CPD develops the habits of critical reflection on existing practice, as well as sharing updates in the development of good practice.
2. The time required and cost per hour of a qualified and competent person undertaking the role of checking logbooks is greater than the figure that you suggest. If the logbook becomes as important as you suggest, then it needs more than the cursory overview that £5 would entail.
3. This exact argument was forwarded by a 'professional'. In practice, it doesn't work. The commercial pressures of operation distract from critical reflection on good practice and it's easier to ignore the importance of developing expertise when you don't challenge the heuristic pathways that have always served you so well...then the black day cometh.

In reply to smile:

Gaining your qualifications for something like a Guide, Instructor, Mountain Leader is just the beginning of a career long commitment to the vocation. A lot will depend on your continuing experience. Someone like a guide who is out several times a week is going to benefit a lot more from actual experience than a part time instructor who might get called upon a couple of times a month, if that, so I think that actual hours working in the field should go a long way towards earning CPD credits, and a 3 yearly re-assessment coupled with say up to 20 hours studying/reading, lectures per year would probably suffice. On the other hand your part timer would need more CPD and annual re-assessment.

In reply to smile:

IMHO its time to revise or even remove the SPA. We now very sensibly have climbing wall qualifications so the pragmatic pressures holding back the basic outdoor climbing skill instruction requirements are much lessened. Hence, I think the minimum outdoor qualification needs to be more robust in its scope, for instance the ability to instruct single pitch leading skills (not just simulated leads). On the MTLA flowchart SPA already links to CPD but oddly not to any further awards (like MIA). Where is the career path in this respect? One model would be a more explicit stepping stone award to MIA from single pitch climbing as an alternative to the ML route.

In reply to smile:
The cost re-assessment has been raised. This can be overcome by introducing a system of peer checking. Instructrs would need to be formed into geograhical groups, not a bad idea for organising group lectures, away days etc. Instructors would be chosen randomly to accompany and observe another instructor with similar qualifications, taking a client or course and to complete an assessment form on them covering all aspects of their skills. If they passed then good, if they failed then they would be refered to a second independent instructor to re-assess them on a similar basis. A second failure would result in suspension of their qualifications pending a full blown re-assessment by the BMC.

The scheme couild be arranged so that different people assessed different instructors every time, and "cosy" reciprocal assessments avoided.

Costs would be kept to a minimum because it would be a duty and condition of every BMC assessed instructor to participate in the scheme.

The peer checking would be run at whatever interval was deemed nessessay with a full re-assessment by the BMC say every 3 years.

In reply to Offwidth: Good points.
1. You're right about how the CWA qualifications have changed the way that instructors have operated in the UK. Certainly, the FUNdamentals programme has altered the way that many SPA instructors operate and brought them up to speed with the knowledge base being used with the CWA. FUNdamentals offers more explicit guidance on coaching the movement skills, for example.
2. The Climbing Wall Leading Award, offered to CWA and SPA holders, hasn't attracted a great deal of interest yet. It enables CWA and SPA to teach leading skills within a climbing wall environment.
3. Feedback from MLT suggests that there is a demand for a basic outdoor supervisory climbing award which isn't pitched as high as the MI scheme. Removing the SPA would not remove this demand. Making the SPA more robust is a better option - in the same way that CWLA was introduced to meet a demand to teach leading in a climbing wall environment, perhaps more than the 'Turbo SPA' that is offered as CPD? A robustly-assessed add-on which allows instructors to teach single pitch leading skills would seem to be the answer. This would seem to fit as part of the progression for an SPA moving towards MIA.
4. There are occasional suggestions that the MI scheme could be refined further - with a specific rock instructor qualification for those instructors who do not wish to teach hillwalking skills.

In reply to smile:

This a very emmotive subject in an industry that pays its employees very little.

A lot of posts on here rightly point out that the individual has a need to maintain their own levels of competency and currency. Likewise the employers, voluntary sector or public body who use these instructors also have a duty of care to ensure that those employees are fit for purpose. This was monitored through the inspection process conducted by AALA (AALS) soon to change, but thats a different issue. The monitoring of standards by employers is also applicable to freelancers and many centres will conduct training and monitoring of freelancers to confrom with their own operating proceedures.

In light of this the necessity to jump through yet more hoops threatens to expell yet more good instructors from the industry, to be replaced by those working part time with second incomes and less continuity in their experience.

A lot of instructors are multiskilled with a range of walking, climbing, mountain biking and paddlesport qualifications, if they need to re-validate all of these and their first aid certificate and child protection training, countless CRB's and centre induction programmes where is the line to be drawn and more improtantly who pays for it all. If you have to pay £120 for a days re-validation, travel to the event, give up a days freelance pay, to mainatin a job that pays relatively little people will stop bothering.

Who is driving this need for re-validation, is it centres because there staff keep killing clients or is it assocations or the potential providers of the re-validations.

Mick

In reply to Trangia: A couple of points.
1. These qualifications aren't BMC quals, they are MLT. MLT are responsible for the standard not the BMC.
2. Being an award holder is a different skillset to assessing another award holder's skillset and competence. Learning to assess workshops are held to upskill those interested in becoming assessors, these workshops have a cost and a further practice implication. A judgement then has to be made as to whether a candidate has met the standard required before they can assess, usually made by a course director.

You mentioned in a previous post how those who worked in the industry regularly would be more familiar with good practice, as compared to someone who worked occasionally. This logic would also apply here, would it not? Those instructors most familiar with reassessment procedures would be the most accurate as they were the most familiar with what was required? The other assessors, from the occasional group and so lacking the familiarity, would be less accurate. In turn they would be subjected to appeals and demands for further re-training! So, far from being a large pool of assessors, the reality would be a few highly-skilled assessors and the remainder at various standards. Isn't that the situation that's trying to be avoided?

In reply to smile:

In the OP there was a list of downsides and one plus, which is "help to reduce accidents through mistakes." I haven't heard of instructors causing a large number of accidents yet, so unless someone can point out to me this extra number, I suggest that this is all someones good idea, but has no actual need. Do you want more paperwork?

Speaking from the amateur side of holding some awards; having got them already, it would be a pain in the arse to have to pay to do more training to keep it current and I think that there are as many good amateurs out there as well as professionals (i.e. Scout Leaders,) who need to be encouraged to keep teaching. CPD will make it harder for them to stay current. As Andi Turner says, the logbook shows whether you are up to date or not, without having CPD, which in my mind is business waffle and lives in the 90's. (I am a lapsed member of the chartered institute of personnel and development.)

In reply to Dee:

Good points. I had assumed (wrongly!) that MLT was as a subsidiary of the parent body the BMC

I still feel, however, that there is mileage to be gained by considering some form of peer assessment, if only at a basic level, so as to keep the costs down in what is generally a poorly paid industry.

For the last three years I have worked as an instructor with GO Ape which has a system of monthly peer assessment of it's intructors. This works very well, particularly for identifying and weeding out non standard/unessessary elements which had a tendancy to creep in due to instructor's individuality. It was also good in highlighting useful instruction tools used by individual instructors which could be adapted by others.

Prior to retiring I worked as an independent Chartered Surveyor as part of a regional group which had introduced monthly random peer assessment whereby you were given a random case number and had to contact the surveyor concerned, access his/her whole file including hand written file notes and critically assess it and their report. Failure would result in discussions with the surveyor with a view to altering their practice procedures, with the ultimate sanction of reporting them to the RICS Professional Practice Committee, who have the power to investigate and expell.

Not the same as mountaineering instructors I know, but maybe similar proceedures could be adopted? There is nothing like peer assessment to make someone buck up when the reputation of the qualification is at stake, and it helps keep the costs down.

In reply to jonnie3430: The answer for the exact figures will lie with the insurers, they deal with the claims resulting from incidents, and the HSE. That MLT who oversee their qualifications view this as an issue, suggests that they are far more aware of the extent of the issues within the industry through their contacts with insurers, intimate knowledge of claims and expert witnesses. From a personal perspective, I disagree, there is an actual need to reduce the number of incidents caused by human error. Nor do I believe that additional paperwork is the answer.

Let's agree on one thing first:- you intend to work 'professionally' with your awards. That means operating to the highest standards of safety and good practice because - in reality - you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if your negligence was held responsible for injury or death.

I'm sure that you can't disagree with the fact that it is high costs for CPD make it hard for volunteers to stay current, not CPD requirements. The evidence? The membership of MLTA who work as volunteers reflected on the demands of CPD when it was first mooted. The general feeling was that most, if not all, already engaged in CPD which exceeded the standard expected of MLTA members. Membership of organisations such as MLTA helps keep CPD costs down - the Regional Group structure is increasingly moving towards providing CPD at cost and the CPD offered by the MLTA is virtually at cost.

Volunteers are no different to those who operate commercially; by this, it's the ethos of professionalism and being current with good practice that is important - rather than just having a neat filled-in logbook. This is the message that those involved in the voluntary sector have delivered.

In reply to Trangia: Thanks for the further clarification, I agree with the points you make. When working at centres, I always welcome being observed by the technical expert - and other instructors (David Hooper being one of a number of genuinely helpful instructors who've helped me develop professionally) - and receiving informed critical feedback about sessions because I recognise that this is a very effective way of maintaining a high standard and developing further expertise.

The MLTA Regional Groups have this potential to operate informally to improve and disseminate knowledge about good practice - there is no cost for attending a MLTA Regional Group meeting which counters the complaints about expense. Personally, I would welcome peer assessment and the development of a mentoring system.

In reply to The Experiment: I think a lot the points you made were what I was trying to say (albeit very badly) in my original response.

Last year I freelanced for several centres but now due to cutbacks and closures they no longer use my services. This isn't because I'm crap because the feedback I get is always positive. Its because why employ someone for £100 a day when you can inhouse train an 18 year old for less than half that. Where do the standards lie then when the centre allows staff to run sessions with no quals whatsover!! I guess however that is also CPD albeit without recognised quals

In reply to Dee:

Instructors human error? I am surprised by that.

Sorry, but as I stated, I use my qualifications as an amateur, I very rarely get paid to use them. I assume that there are far more amateurs with ML's and SPA's (not full time instructors,) than professionals.

High cost in money and time. I am not a member of the MLTA, it seems to be an organisation for full time instructors, not the amateurs (at £30 a year, I won't be joining in the near future.)

The ethos of proffesionalism isn't very big in UK mountaineering (in UK instructing it is,) we are still very much amateur climbers, and learn from each other more than a guide/instructor, so the ethos is less. I love finding about good practice, this would be easy to do by putting short, simple videos on youtube (how to escape the system, how to unassisted hoist, how to multipitch rescue?) Why isn't this done? There are some videos out there, but if it was all there and updated, there wouldn't be much reason for courses...

In reply to andi turner:
Sorry but thats totally wrong. In Scouts in my experience even the accredited award alone may not actually allow you to lead or supervise anyone. Alongwith my ML I must hold a Scout issued activity permit (and also a District Instructors Warrant) which does expire and is reviewed. I wouldnt say that its a "re-assessment" but when this does come around I would expect my logbook to be properly examined and probably to be re-interviewed. IMO 20 days per 5 years is nothing like enough CPD, but starting from nothing its better than....nothing.

In reply to jonnie3430: If I can clarify the following:-
Instructor's human error is recognised as the major factor in incidents. There are a number of studies (including those published by AALS/AALA), professional association investigations and inquest reports which substantiate this.

Working 'professionally' has nothing to do with working commercially or being paid for the work.

Quite simply, it's a standard that all who hold these awards need to continue to meet when they operate, whether they work as an 'amateur' or commercially. Arguably, it's the standard of care that an instructor would need to demonstrate in a court were it so required.

The cost of MLTA membership is £27.50. The vast majority of its members are not full-time instructors nor operate commercially.

Again, I disagree with the comment about the ethos of professionalism in UK mountaineering. The leaders, instructors and supervisors who operate in the UK and overseas are expected to act professionally, irrespective of whether they receive payment or not. From my experience, which may differ from your own, the vast majority uphold this tenet.

As for £27.50 (the cost of MLTA membership) being too expensive and an earlier comment that you do not wish to pay money to stay current with your awards, I wish you every success with your use of the qualifications.

In reply to Dee: That £27.50 is money well spent i am a member and it has SAVED me over £900.00 in discounted courses and equipment alone, not to mention the access to other like minded people and even offers of work.

Bit of a no-brainer if you are planning working through NGB awards if you ask me.