Registration

Registered practitioners are recognised as proficient in their role. They have met training and experiential standards endorsed by the EMPS Panel. Registered practitioners can work competently in the role without the requirement for mentoring or supervision beyond the usual incident chain of command.

Registration is not a guarantee that the individual will be able to work in a context outside their home agency without having received induction and briefing about what may be unfamiliar emergency management arrangements and legislation. Their registration does, however, provide evidence that they have been able to acquire and use this knowledge to a proficient standard in their home jurisdiction and so may be expected to be able to translate these abilities to other working environments when required.

Apart from a small number of specialist technical roles, EMPS does not register people in hazard-specific classes: for example, an incident controller will be registered as such without any differentiation as to what hazard/s they are competent to manage. This is because EMPS aims to describe people’s professional ability to manage emergencies in the context for which they have been trained – it is the role of agencies and jurisdictional emergency management arrangements to ensure that the right people are assigned to the right tasks at an incident.

The Registration Process

To become registered, an applicant must demonstrate compliance with the relevant professional standard for the role. Usually, this requires them to have been assessed as competent in the Public Safety Training Package unit of competency for the role (or mapped equivalent training course) and to have at least two years’ experience during which they have performed the role successfully at least three times.

Applicants must have the support of their organisation, where relevant, to apply. Typically, AFAC member agencies will manage applications for registration of their personnel from a central point. Applicants who do not work for an AFAC member agency or another organisation that has been approved by EMPS for the purpose of endorsement of applications, will need a reference from a senior officer of an AFAC member agency in their jurisdiction speaking to their proficiency in the role.

Applicants for registration agree to undertake continuing professional development activities and to observe the EMPS Code of Ethics.

The pathway to registration is shown below: