The Fire Industry Association’s all-new Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Certification Centre is an exclusive member-focused benefit affording the organisation’s members’ CPD sessions the FIA ‘stamp of approval’, in turn saving them thousands of pounds.

Members will now be able to have their CPD certified by the FIA as part of the cost of their membership. The FIA can host, market and manage all bookings for any sessions which have been certified by the FIA CPD Certification Centre. The FIA will then issue CPD certificates on behalf of its members to the delegates involved (the only proviso being that the CPD session must be hosted by the FIA). Importantly, data on attendees will only be shared with the member company delivering the CPD session.

The organisation is readily able to assess the technical content of CPD sessions and give them its stamp of approval or otherwise assist with bringing it up to standard. This enables the Trade Association to be able to assess any presentations which are submitted and also give the stamp of approval on its educational quality.

The FIA strives to do all it can to champion, represent and help improve the excellent advice given by its members to their customers and, indeed, the wider industry.  By checking and certifying members’ CPD, the FIA feels that this will be of massive benefit to all parties involved and also serves as a practical way in which to improve standards right across the entire fire industry.

By having the weight of the FIA’s technical and educational backing behind them, CPD sessions gain a level of credibility specific to the industry at which they are aimed. It also benefits end users (ie the target audience of FIA members) as they know that the CPD they are receiving has been checked and certified by the leading industry body, thereby giving it more value and credibility.

FIA members using its CPD service no longer have to pay fees to external generic CPD certification bodies who are not experts in the fire industry. This can potentially save companies thousands of pounds in unnecessary expenditure.

By making use of the FIA’s marketing ability and its extensive database of fire industry and related contacts, members can rest assured that their CPD sessions are being marketed directly to the right people and companies.

Crucially, the wider fire industry can also benefit from the FIA’s CPD Certification Centre as they become familiar with the online CPD process itself.

The certification process is a simple one. Members submit their presentation via e-mail to the FIA’s Technical Department for assessment. The presentation will be assessed against various criteria including (but not limited to) technical correctness, impartiality (there must be nothing product or company-specific) and educational quality, etc.

Once a session passes the assessment process and is certified, the FIA will enable usage of the FIA CPD Certified logo which can be applied to all certificates for that session.

The event is then booked in with the FIA’s training team and this will be added to the events calendar on the Trade Association’s website. Sessions will also be included in the FIA’s marketing releases and social media.