OPD
- For at least 3 years CoCA has requested upgrading qualifications be approved as a legitimate OPD activity for those celebrants who voluntarily wish to do so.
- CoCA has never recommended compulsory upgrade of training qualifications for existing celebrants.
- Nor has any compulsory upgrade ever been discussed by the MLCS with CoCA delegates.
- The MLCS OPD Proposal can be found here on:
AGD OPD Draft paper 1 – June 2013 - CoCA’s response to the MLCS OPD Proposal can be found on:
OPD Options for 2013 - There are many other places on the CoCA website about OPD recommendations – under Issues and Progress in particular. For example:
Appendix 3. OPD Approval and Monitoring
Appendix 6: OPD legal requirements
- CoCA has made a number of recommendations for improving the training and assessment of new celebrants.
- To date, none of these CoCA recommendations have been fully implemented by the MLCS
- The Skills Council has had to put the Client Services Course Reviews on hold for 12 months. This is due to the lack of resources they have with the Client Services Project Manager going on Maternity Leave.
See: Client services training review delayed 12 months
- Before Project Officer left she completed the remaining two Units from Draft 1 and these have loaded now on the CoCA website. Scroll to the bottom of the page:
Seven celebrancy specific units - CoCA will be discussing with the Skills Council ways for CoCA and the MLCS to work together to progress this project whilst Ms Ewan is away to see if we can work on the units and the assessment criteria and make
some recommendations about the shape of the course itself. - CoCA delegates reviewed the job description and agreed it was an accurate description of what celebrants need to do (and associated knowledge and skills)
- Delegates also reviewed the Australia Qualification Framework (AQF) which pegs the level of the training to the
- complexity of the tasks
- the creativity and organization required
- the level of autonomy
- the level of responsibility of the work
and all agreed that independent celebrant’s role is at least equivalent to the “para-professional” level (ie a person working under the supervision of a licenced professional) if that is the way the AQF determines the level. - The MLCS expressed concerns about the change of level of the course, if there were eventually to be the outcome, as this would require further work on changing the legislation.
- The next step is for further discussion by the Delegates with their Association Committees, amongst their associations, and between CoCA, the MLCS and other stakeholders with the view to assisting the Skills Council in preparing for a Draft 2 for another stage of broad consultation.
- CoCA is in dialogue with the Skills Council to look at ways for CoCA and the MLCS can work together to progress this project whilst Ms Ewan is away . In particular to work of units and the assessment criteria and if possible
make some recommendations about the shape of the course itself for Draft 2, whether that is proposed as a level 4 or 5. - Early 2015 would appear to be the likely time for a Draft 2 Consultation with the final recommendations being required to be completed by December 2015.
- Any changes to the Celebrant Training Qualifications are therefore unlikely to be implemented before 2017.
