Policy on Curling’s NCCP Maintenance of Certification

Implementation Date:  January 1, 2014

Curling Canada recognizes the importance for certified coaches across Canada to be involved in professional development that reinforces the values of continuous improvement and lifelong learning and encourages sharing of learning among coaches.

Effective January 1, 2014 the following policy will be implemented and the five (5) year certification period will begin. Note January 1 of any year will be the date used to determine the certification period of valid certification (ex. if a coach is certified on May 1, 2014 their five year certification period will begin on January 1, 2015).

Policy Statement

1.    Coaches participate in professional development activities to:

a) Renew their active certification status.

b) Enhance their knowledge and competencies in order to provide a high standard of sport coaching practice for their athletes.

c) Stay current with developments in their coaching context or develop new areas of specialized practice.

2.    Professional development reflects the reality that coach learning is influenced by a mix of formal, non-formal and informal learning experiences.

3.    Professional development provides coaches with some opportunity to choose the various learning experiences that will be of benefit to themselves and their athletes.

4.   It must be possible to recognize and verify an experience for the purpose of recording professional development credit.

5.    Reflection, formative evaluation, and summative evaluation will be considered as professional development.

Maintenance of Certification

Professional development requirements must be completed by the end of the period for which the certification is valid.

Coaches are required to obtain a minimum number of professional development credits, dependent upon the context which they are certified.

Context (includes any gradation)	5 year period (beginning January 1, 2014)
Competition-Introduction (“Competition Coach”	20 points
Competition-Development	30 points

Professional Development Credits

	Activity Category	Points	Limitations
Curling Specific	Active Coaching	1 points/year for every season coached1 point/year for Learning Facilitator or Evaluator Activity	To a maximum of 5 points for certification renewal period
NCCP Activity	5 points/training module or evaluation event	No maximum or minimum
Non-NCCP Activity	1 point/hour of activity up to 3 points maximum	No maximum or minimum
Coach Self-Directed Activity	3 points for the valid certification period	Maximum of 3 points for the certification renewal period
Re-evaluation in context	100% of the points required for PD credit in the context	No other PD is required if coach chooses re-evaluation
Multi-sport	NCCP Activity	5 points/training module or evaluation event	No maximum or minimum
Non-NCCP Activity	1 point/hour of activity up to 3 points maximum	To a maximum of 50% of required PD for the context in a certification renewal period

1. Curling Canada and the Coaching Association of Canada will maintain a PD Registry that includes all events that are eligible for professional development credits along with the corresponding credit for each activity.  The list will include:

a)    All sport-specific NCCP and non-NCCP activities for which the sport’s coaches can claim credit.

b)    Any sport-specific NCCP or non-NCCP activities offered by another sport that the NSO chooses to recognize as professional development.

c)    All NCCP multi-sport activities.

d)    All non-NCCP multi-sport activities from the national list that the NSO chooses to recognize as professional development.

2. Curling Canada may designate a specific activity or activities as mandatory professional development in any context, but must also provide coaches in that context the opportunity to choose other activities to complete the remaining required professional development for the certification renewal period.

3. A coach will have the full period of their valid certification to accumulate the total required professional development credits.

4. A coach must complete the required professional development within the valid certification period to renew their certification.

5. Only those professional development credits entered in a coach’s record on the NCCP database will be used to determine whether the coach meets the context-specific requirements within the current certification period of valid certification.

6. Any of the NSO, P/TSO, P/TCR or individual coach may enter a professional development record in the NCCP Database; however the NSO will determine which of these means can be used in their sport to enter data on the database.

7. All non-NCCP activity related to renewal of certification and professional development data entered on the database will be subject to a user-pay system.

8. Certified (renewed) status will be given only to those coaches who accumulate the required professional development credits with the current certification renewal period.

9. Failure to accumulate the required professional development credits within the specified time causes the coach’s status to be changed to Certified (not-renewed).

10.  A coach who completes the required professional development credits after the end date of the period for renewal of certification will achieve Certified (renewed) status but the subsequent period for renewal of certification will begin on the original date by which the required professional development credits should have been complete.

Glossary

NCCP activity: any approved NCCP activity including:

• Coach training – sport-specific or multi-sport for core or any gradation
• Multi-sport professional development module
• Sport-specific professional development module
• Coach evaluation
• Learning Facilitator, Advanced Learning Facilitator, Master Learning Facilitator, Evaluator or Master Evaluator training

Non-NCCP activity: any non-formal or informal learning activity or self-directed activity that is recognized as professional development by a sport.

Formal learning: takes place within a structured education system that has standardized curricula and requires a coach to demonstrate a predetermined level of competency before achieving certification.

Non-formal learning is any organized educational activity outside of the NCCP that provides learning opportunities for coaches. Examples include coaching conferences, seminars, apprenticeship programs, workshops, and clinics.

Informal learning is the lifelong process of acquiring knowledge, skills, attitudes and insights through daily experiences and exposure to coaching and sport. Informal learning happens in a wide variety of settings including, previous experience as an athlete, informal mentoring, day-to day coaching experiences, and interaction with peer coaches and athletes.

Self-directed learning occurs when the coach reflects upon their technical, practical, and critical coaching issues and determines how to overcome practical coaching dilemmas. Self-directed learning makes use of a wide variety of materials, including coaching and sports science manuals, books, journal articles, videos, Internet sources, etc. that were created for the purpose of enabling learning.

Season of coaching is the normal coaching period for a context in a sport. It could be a partial year or a full year.

Professional Development Opportunities

Each provincial/territorial curling association is responsible for creating and registering Professional Development (PD) opportunities for coaches.  PD opportunities will vary per province/territory. The coach will then log onto “The Locker” to track their own PD. Please note this process is new and we’re still working on some of the details – please keep accurate records of your PD as a back up to The Locker. The Locker will list the number of points per activity and will track the coach’s PD point total.

Many PD opportunities are recurring and points are available for the following:

• Active coaching within curling
• Participant in a wheelchair curling coach PD workshop
• Participant in a Canada Winter Games PD workshop
• Curling-specific coach symposiums/workshops
• Coach of a team attending a high performance camp
• Coach of a team attending a Canada Winter Games camp
• Coach of a team attending a National Team Program camp
• Facilitator coach at a junior curling camp
• Facilitator coach at an adult curling camp
• Facilitator coach at a high performance camp
• Facilitator coach at National Team Program camp
• Instructor – curling clinic (any topic)
• Instructor coach – skill development series (Manitoba)
• Instructor coach – League in a Box (Manitoba)
• Evaluator – League in a Box athlete evaluations (Manitoba)
• Team coach – high performance program (Manitoba)
• Speciality coach – mentorship (Manitoba)
• Coach – junior development curling program (Manitoba)
• Rockslide Camp coach skill development (B.C.)
• High performance camp coach skill development (B.C.)
• Coach mentorship program (B.C.)
• High performance consultant mentorship (Saskatchewan)
• CurlSask Canada Winter Games mentor coach (Saskatchewan)
• CurlSask coach mentor (Saskatchewan)
• Active NCCP Learning Facilitator
• Active NCCP Evaluator