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Membership

About IPD

There's only one fair way of assessing whether someone meets the criteria for Chartered membership. We use your qualifications and a clearly structured assessment procedure to measure your knowledge, commitment and experience. The procedure we use is called Initial Professional Development (IPD).

If you can sucessfully complete the assessment and the interview, you will transfer to Chartered membership at the next available opportunity. Alongside IPD, all members must join our Continuing Professional Development (CPD) scheme, using our specially designed online programme. Throughout your professional working life, CPD will help keep your knowledge and expertise fresh and up to date.

Once you've been awarded Graduate membership you can enrol on the Initial Professional Development (IPD) scheme straight away, you'll need to fill in an IPD registration form and send it to the membership department along with the fee of £135.00. The IPD registration fee will increase to £150.00 on 1st January 2012. You have two years to complete the IPD process or be asked to register and pay the joining fee again.

There are a number of ways to achieve Chartered membership through IPD. You need to complete either a Skills Development Portfolio, Open Book Assessment or both. The specific process you are asked to undertake will depend on how you became a Graduate member. Once these have been successfully completed you will be asked to attend a Peer Review Interview.

If you're a Graduate Member with an accredited degree or diploma you can achieve Chartered status by:

completing a skills development portfolio (SDP)
maintaining your CPD
successfully completing the peer review interview.

For Graduate Members with a level 4 NVQ or SVQ in Occupational Health and Safety, Chartered membership is achieved by:

maintaining your CPD
successfully completing the open assessment and peer review interview.

And Graduate Members with cognate degrees have to:

complete a skills development portfolio (SDP)
maintain their CPD
successfully complete the open assessment and peer review interview.

The procedure we use is called Initial Professional Development (IPD).

When you become a Graduate Member, alongside your certificate we'll send you an IPD registration form. You need to fill this in and return it to us to start your IPD. The cost for the registration is £135.00. The IPD registration fee will increase to £150.00 on 1st January 2012. Alternatively, you can call us on +44 (0)116 2573198 and we can take payment over the phone.

Getting help with IPD

When you enrol on IPD you will be assigned an IPD officer to help you through the process of becoming a Chartered Member. Your officer will be able to advise you about the tools available to help you complete IPD.

The IPD tools include interactive workshops, one-to-one sessions where necessary and access to trained mentors.

Your IPD officer will advise you when access to a mentor is the right option.

If you are currently completing IPD and feel you would like the support of an IPD mentor, contact your local IPD officer. It may be a few weeks before the next mentor is available, but we'll be in touch as soon as we can with details.

Find out more about our mentoring scheme.

Is there any other way I can become a Chartered Member?

No – we aim to give a clear and unequivocal signal to employers, and others, that there's a minimum level of expertise and experience that they can expect from a Chartered Member of IOSH. So there's no quick way to gain Chartered status. We believe that it should be earned in word and deed – only by working to strict standards at all levels can we hope to maintain the value of IOSH membership for our members and the people who trust them.

It's this rigorous process that makes Chartered status so valuable to employers and members alike. We therefore don't allow shortcuts or 'fast tracks', as these would devalue it and remove the very reasons most people have for becoming Chartered – recognition and employability.