• Click to download the: RPIOL info flier. (3Mb)
• RPIOL poster (1Mb)

Professional Accreditation for Practitioners

RPIOL for Participants - CLICK HERE

RPIOL for Centres and Employers

Badging quality delivery

What is RPIOL?

RPIOL is IOL’s entry level accreditation; it’s for participants who have:

• consolidated experience of facilitating outdoor learning sessions
• are not necessarily working in “challenging environments”
• are working in any branch of outdoor learning (including traditional “outdoor pursuits” but also environmental studies etc)

RPIOL does not “retest” specialist skills.  It records and recognises the way you have used these skills in your work with groups and individuals.

There are 5 key areas in RPIOL: 

• the core skills of Facilitating Learning and Managing Risk
• backed up by Personal Philosophy of outdoor learning, Values and Ethics, and Reflection and Career Development. 

To check out whether you could be at the level to apply for RPIOL: Click here to see/download the RPIOL Benchmarks (Pdf) and Criteria (Pdf).

Benefits of RPIOL for practitioners, employers and the outdoor sector

RPIOL provides:

• map of good practice showing path towards integrated professionalism
• framework which can be integrated with appraisals/staff development
• evidence of experience of session leadership
• an integrated stepping stone towards APIOL

RPIOL is applicable across all areas of outdoor learning; it increases flexibility and career options.

RPIOL for Centres/Employers – badging quality delivery

RPIOL provides certification that you are giving your staff the opportunity to reflect on and develop their practice, and that they are facilitating experiential learning at a benchmarked level.  RPIOL can be run by all outdoor learning providers (e.g outdoor education centres, environmental studies centres, wild life trusts, country parks, youth services, voluntary organisations, development training providers, schools, etc etc).

There are now almost 30 providers that can provide RPIOL.

If you have at least one APIOL in your workplace, you can become an RPIOL centre.  All you have to do is train 2 Internal Facilitators (IFs), one of whom must be APIOL,  to administer RPIOL in your workplace. Once you have trained IFs, you do your own briefing and sign-off meetings, and sign off the observed sessions of your participants. 

• Internal Facilitator training costs £150 per person; there is no further “licence” fee, but the IF title rests with the individuals trained (ie if they leave, you will have to train some more)
• Because you are doing your own internal sign-off, IOL will only charge you £100 per participant, which covers the external interview, moderation and administration. (As the individual fee for RPIOL will be £200 after September 2009, once you have put through 3 RPIOLs, you’re saving money by being a centre)
• For RPIOL Enrolment (Internal) form Click Here

Internal Facilitator Training Dates

• There will be IF training:
• East - Tues 30th March 2010 at Grafham Water Centre, Cambridgeshire. Info here
• Scotland on June 23rd. More info here - application here
• If you are in another region or can’t make the dates above, email Heather to express your interest anyway – we will set up further training days round the UK, according to where the interest is.

Current RPIOL Internal Facilitators (16/2/09)

Click here for a list of: Internal Facilitators of Registered Practitioner of IOL.

The Accreditation Process

Click here to see an overview of the RPIOL application/accreditation process (Pdf).

Professional Accreditation for Practitioners

RPIOL for Participants - CLICK HERE

Quality Assurance - RPIOL is administered through local centres, each of which has a trained Internal Facilitator, who is an APIOL Mentor.  Quality is assured by a regional team of External Facilitators who interview participants, and moderated by the IOL Region/Home Nation Professional Development Officer.

Would you like to help out with RPIOL?

If you are a APIOL member and would like to be involved in the regional development of RPIOL, please email Heather Brown.