SafetySkills is an Accredited Provider authorized by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) to offer their Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for completion of our products. But it’s worth considering what exactly that means for you and your learners.
IACET
IACET is a non-profit association that endeavors to ensure quality education and training programs. In conjunction with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), IACET has published a standard template for how continuing education and training programs can be developed. The ANSI/IACET standard is focused on how to develop continuing education and training programs for workers, and their framework can be applied across several disciplines and industries.
Continuing Education Units
A major part of IACET’s purpose involves applying and measuring CEUs. The CEU was created in 1970 when the U.S. Department of Education, in conjunction with IACET, created a task force designed to determine how to measure continuing education activities that did not correspond directly with college course credit. The CEU was designed to “provide a standard unit of measurement for continuing education and training, quantify continuing education and training activities, and accommodate for the diversity of providers, activities and purposes in adult education.” IACET and the Department of Education define 1 CEU as being an equivalent to 10 hours of in-person training on a subject.
CEUs are not exclusive to IACET; many employers, organizations and licensing authorities have their own measurements for measuring continuing education. Further, each organization, employer or higher education institution can choose whether or not to accept CEUs. (IACET has posted a list of known organizations that accept their CEUs here.) However, the ANSI/IACET standard forms a basic framework that organizations can adopt to develop their training programs. Here at SafetySkills, we utilize the ANSI/IACET standard as part of our course design and building process to create courses that can fit your needs as an organization and your learners’ health and safety training needs.
Accreditation
In the process of obtaining IACET accreditation, SafetySkills showed how our products align with the ANSI/IACET standard through a rigorous application process. Our processes are designed to align with IACET’s requirements for course organization and planning, design, expected outcomes, constraints, assessment, and recordkeeping. The application process also included an in-person review by an IACET site visitor, and demonstrating adherence to the ANSI/IACET standard. As an Accredited Provider, we’re authorized to use the IACET name and logo, and we can be found in IACET’s Accredited Provider directory.
Each SafetySkills course is worth 0.1 CEUs. If an employee of one of our clients were to take 10 of our courses, he or she would receive the equivalent of 1 CEU. However, because each individual organization can decide whether or not to accept the CEU as evidence of competency, learners and/or employers should make sure their intended organization accepts it before relying on it. Fortunately, since our training courses align with IACET’s training standards, as well as regulatory requirements and industry-specific safe work practices, you can feel confident that SafetySkills can meet your health and safety training needs.
