Nett Furley, Consultant for Ceremonies Network Structure Project

Nett Furley, Consultant for Ceremonies Network Structure Project

Recommendations for Humanists UK Ceremonies Board August 2017 meeting

Contents / Page Number
Summary of outcomes against original brief / 2
Section 1 - Progress of Interim Recommendations from October 2016 / 3
Section 2 - Additional Recommendations made since Oct 2016 that have been approved internally and now being actioned / 5
Section 3 - Recommendations that still require approval prior to October 2017 Conference / 8
Have the issues raised during the consultation that led to the creation of this project been addressed? / 12
Appendices / 14
Role description for celebrant network support coordinator and process for recruitment
Celebrant Network Support Coordinator – Keeping Standards High and Resolving Problems
Proposed Accreditation Observation Form
Terms of reference for local celebrant groups
CPD Fund application form for regions/nations
Celebrant Network Support Coordinator Handbook Contents
Review of Accreditation Observations
Summary of all recommendations

Summary of outcomes against original project brief

The following table highlights the original brief and how that will have changed by the end of this project. These are the summary headings. Detailed recommendations have been made to facilitate this and are described in the document.

Initial brief given to ceremonies network structure project: / The result at end of project
To restructure the celebrant network into a two-tier system of
regions/nations and local groups. All celebrants would be
allocated to a region/nation based on the UK Government
system of nine English regions, Wales and Northern Ireland,
with the Channel Islands being combined with South West. / Adopted
To appoint an existing celebrant as Coordinator for each
region/nation, whose primary function is to ensure the
effective operation of local groups within their region/nation
including provision of support to individual celebrants / In Progress. Will be complete by
end October
That existing local groups will be allocated to a region/nation / Adopted
To ensure existing and new local groups are accessible to local
celebrants and have sufficient members to allow useful work to
be done together, but not so large that meetings and
collaboration is difficult to manage. / Adopted – with no definition of
a minimum size of group, as it
up to them, as long as it is
supportive and effective in
relation to CPD etc.
That local groups provide social contact and mutual support for
local celebrants, hold regular meetings at least twice a year,
with brief records kept, some standard agenda items,
collaboration on joint promotions, marketing initiatives etc.,
keep local celebrants up to date, arrange local CPD, arrange
annual peer reviews / Adopted – with the exception
that groups can set their own
agendas and are not required to
use a template. However, a set
of core topics are encouraged
That local group leaders will work on voluntary basis, leading
the local group & organising meetings / Adopted – now called Local
Celebrant Group Organisers
That regions/nations may organise a regional/national
“mini-conference” which is more accessible to celebrants as a
way of increasing attendance of annual celebrant conferences. / Adopted – in that
regions/nations have been
encouraged to arrange
region/nation-wide CPD
and will be supported to do so

Section 1

Progress of Interim Recommendations from October 2016

The following recommendations were agreed in 2016 and have since been/are being actioned

Recommendation / Progress
Project structure / Extension of the pilot / This was extended for another year till Oct 2017
CPD / Defined
New form - reflective
Training team programme
E-learning
Lessons learnt and Q&A pages
CPD Fund
Experienced celebrant on course / The CPD policy has been reviewed and updated and more clearly defined.
A new form (found in celebrant handbook) has been produced that better reflects the competencies being developed and encourages reflective practice
The training team have developed some CPD sessions and continue to explore more that could be available to regions and individuals
E learning films will be developed at the next celebrant conference by filming CPD sessions and will be available on website.
There is now a Q & A page on the celebrant website that answers those commonly asked questions.
A CPD fund has been committed to, for regions to bid into. Form has been created for regions to use from October. Needs to be put in place
A quarterly ‘lessons learnt’ still needs to be set up learning from CPD returns and other feedback
The principle of inviting an experienced celebrant onto each training course has been agreed but still needs to be set up and actioned.
Peer Reviews / Defined – 3 yearly, each ceremony type
New Form
Training for celebrants
Trainers as resource to carry out PR / Peer Review policy has been updated and 3-yearly Peer Review Observations are now required for each ceremony type
The Peer Review form has been updated to reflect the structure of a ceremony and to clarify competencies assessing against
Training is now being offered by Humanists UK for any regions/nations that would like CPD on how to best peer review and manage difficult conversations. Several have already taken this up.
Trainers are now available to carry out Peer Reviews where a celebrant has tried all other avenues, but not been able to get someone to do their peer review
Recruitment / Review of Policy- open market
Reduced Face to Face
Reduced process
Marketing / The recruitment policy was reviewed and updated to reflect an open market.
The process has been reduced and face to face interviews have been changed to skype interviews
A marketing plan is now being developed with input from the pilot Coordinators about areas of need
Local Celebrant Groups / Provided all celebrants with information about local groups / All celebrants have been informed of which region they are in and with details of local groups near them
Accreditation / Linked to
●CPD
●Peer Review
●Fee/ Levy
●Engage with the network
Explore external accreditation
Review Levy / CPD, Peer Reviews and payment of (new) fee is now clearly linked to accreditation and reaccreditation.
‘Engagement with the network’ is not yet being insisted upon, but has now been defined and is part of the next set of recommendations.
External accreditation has been explored and the result is that a quality mark will be pursued this year
The levy has been reviewed and replaced with a fee structure
Handbook / Updated and issued to all celebrants and on celebrant website / A new Celebrant Handbook has been produced and circulated to all celebrants.
A system has also been devised that will capture any suggested changes for the next update next year.

Section 2

Additional Recommendations Made Since Oct 2016

The following have been agreed between Oct 2016 and July 2017 and are now being/ been actioned

Local Celebrant Groups
1 / The name of people who organise or host the local celebrant group meetings will now hold the title Local Celebrant Group Organiser, whether it is a virtual, face to face or skype meeting
Mentoring
1 / Mentor training to be held on rolling programme around the country to demonstrate commitment to supporting regions. Training will be open to all celebrants, whichever region it is held in (not confined to that regions celebrants):
London and South East
North East/ Yorkshire & Humber
South West
North West/NI
Wales/West Midlands
East Midlands/Eastern
2 / Training to be held at least three times a year until we have sufficient Mentors in place
3 / Mentors are required to have done at least 6 ceremonies in their ceremony type before being trained/asked to be a Mentor
4 / Email to Mentor confirming which Trainee each Mentor is allocated to, to include:
•Outline of current training programme
•Link to new Mentor Handbook and Trainee (mentee) Handbook
5 / Only celebrants who have been trained to be Mentors (by Humanists UK or Humanist Society Scotland HSS) to be asked to Mentor
6 / Celebrant Network Support Coordinators to be involved in the process of allocating Mentors (this will involve them working with Coordinators in neighbouring regions to ensure Mentors allocated as geographically close as possible to trainee). Final decision remains with Humanists UK office.
7 / Mentors explicitly asked to review the way a trainee/probationary celebrant conducts themselves at family visits (role description)
8 / Mentors are expected to ensure trainees are invited to a local group (or regional/national) meetings
9 / Feedback about Mentors required from trainers as well as trainees, at end of each course if there are issues or concerns (as per current policy)
Accreditation Observations
1 / Clarity will be provided to all celebrants to ensure an understanding of the process for probationary celebrants arranging an accreditation observation i.e. that it needs to be arranged through Humanists UK office and only carried out by an approved accreditation observer.
2 / A new accreditation observation form (appendix) has been developed, so it is in line with Peer Review Observation form, using the ceremony structure and competency framework as its guide
3 / All Celebrant Network Support Coordinators will be provided with an up to date list of Accreditation Observers in their region so that they can make recommendations for other celebrants who may be considered by Humanists UK for this role.
4 / Training team member requested to carry out Accreditation Observations when a local Accreditation Observer cannot be found after three requests by Humanists UK office
Celebrant Network Support Coordinator role
1 / Standards of Practice and maintaining standards defined
2 / Resource requirements and management framework defined
3 / New Role description, person specification and terms of office agreed
4 / Role will be reviewed each year to ensure the growth of the network will not make the role unmanageable
5 / Recruitment timetable put in place and recruitment in all regions/nations is in progress – with interviews held in the relevant region/nation
6 / Coordinator Handbook being created and introduced (see appendix for content summary)
7 / Information needs for Coordinators agreed and put in place, as below:
Humanist UK will provide four times a year:

An up to date list of celebrants in their region/nation including:

●New Trainees (i)with start date of course they have been accepted onto ii) whether new to network or existing celebrants
●Trainees given probationary accreditation status
●Celebrants given full accreditation
●Celebrants who have left the network
●Celebrants who have been de-accredited (as not paid levy, done CPD, peer review etc.)

List of who current mentors and accreditation observers in the region/nation are
Date of all their celebrants last CPD return and Peer Review return

Virtual Panel
1 / As the panel has grown without much strategic direction, but rather celebrants just added to it as they showed an interest, it is recommended that the Virtual Panel adopts a new profile and that the new membership has more of a rationale as follows:
Virtual Panel membership is for three years
The following celebrants are automatically members:
●The 11 Celebrant Network Support Coordinators
●Head trainer(s)
●The current celebrant members of QAC and of MAC
Membership also needs to ensure representativeness of:
●Age
●Region
●Culture
●Ceremony type
●Recently trained and long-serving celebrants
●Highest and lowest performing (number of ceremonies) celebrants
●‘Local Celebrant Group Organisers’ once Ceremonies Network Support Coordinators have been appointed
Accreditation
1 / The Celebrant Handbook needs to be regularly reviewed to reflect a changing environment. To that end, we all need to take responsibility for keeping its standard as high as possible. Therefore, a facility has been added to the celebrant website where all celebrants can make suggestions about changes to it
Complaints
1 / The complaints policy and procedures has now been reviewed and updated. It is included in the latest Celebrant Handbook and is being used by QAC. It will be further reviewed in the coming months

Section 3

Recommendations requiring approval prior to Oct 2017 Celebrant Conference

Overall Structure and Regional Boundaries

Recommendation
1 / The proposed structure using the government boundaries should be adopted. There will be 9 Regions and 2 Nations that will each have a Celebrant Network Support Coordinator appointed.
All celebrants will be allocated to a region or nation for administrative purposes.They will be titled:
●Northern Ireland
●Wales
●North West
●North East
●Yorkshire and Humber
●East Midlands
●West Midlands
●Eastern
●South East
●South West
●London
*While the boundaries are fairly artificial for celebrants when marketing or carrying out ceremonies, they are useful in terms of making connections with other regional organisations such as NAFD or local government. While some of the regions are geographically very broad they are only used to allocate celebrant network support coordinators and administratively this works as well as any other boundary. The one region that makes least sense in terms of identity is the South East and so consideration was given to breaking this up and ‘allocating’ celebrants to other regions, but this would have made administration too complicated.
2 / Celebrant Network Support Coordinators must communicate with each other to ensure they are picking up the issues for all their celebrants, cooperate when allocating Mentors, arranging Peer Review Observations etc.
The key part of the structure for celebrants is the Local Celebrant Group they belong to and this may be across the regional boundary. It is important that local celebrant groups provide a celebrant with what they need, wherever it is located. It is important that Coordinators support all their celebrants whichever group they belong to.

Mentors

1 / To review remuneration of Mentors as part of 2018 budget process. There is no evidence that remuneration is a barrier to celebrants becoming Mentors, but if done well the role is quite time consuming and has not been reviewed in relation to remuneration for a while.

Continuing Professional Development - CPD

1 / CPD sessions to be arranged by groups on different times of day and different days of week to ensure as many people can attend as possible
2 / Those regions who previously had region/nation-wide meetings to use at least one a year for CPD
3 / Encourage Local Celebrant Groups to have CPD on every agenda
4 / Celebrants are encouraged to attend CPD sessions at the annual celebrant conference, however not everyone can make it and so Coordinators should consider asking workshop leaders to provide sessions in their region/nation
5 / That the need for a credit type system be reviewed in 2019 as we develop our standards as a network.
*Culturally the network is not ready for a CPD fixed credit type system, but may in the future want to aspire to one. Discussions have included: How would we allocate credits to activity? CPD should somehow be quantifiable in order to ensure standards are being achieved if linked to accreditation. Is it a way to distinguish ourselves from Independents? Decided FDs do not really choose us because we are part of Humanists UK but rather because we are reliable and available etc. So, who would this have credit with? We already have enough to mark ourselves as different e.g. accreditation, individual, insurance, peer review. Requiring more bureaucracy will put more celebrants off. Quite onerous to introduce and how would it be enforced
6 / Humanist UK recommend that celebrants start to record the number of hours of CPD they have done each year and therefore a column has been, to the right of the CPD form, that states how many hours has been spent on each activity to encourage celebrants to aspire to this.

Local Celebrant Groups

1 / Local Celebrant Group Organisers consider using these suggested agenda items for each meeting to ensure consistency and transparency
●Welcoming of new trainees and probationary accredited celebrants
●CPD
●Peer Reviews
●News from Humanists UK
2 / Local Celebrant Group Organisers to share their minutes with their Coordinators so that they keep up to date with the issues locally
*There was a suggestion that minutes be shared with the Head of Ceremonies. This is considered to be too bureaucratic, especially now it is the role of the Celebrant Network Support Coordinator to gather information about issues in the region
3 / Celebrant Network Support Coordinators support the establishment of any Local Celebrant Groups that meet local celebrant needs. This needs to recognise that ‘one size’ does not fits all. Groups may include:
●Day time meetings
●Evening meetings
●Weekend meetings
●Rotation of all the above
●Skype meetings
●Google groups
●Virtual Groups (Humanists UK can support the setting up of these)
●Rotating chairs
●CPD only sessions
4 / Celebrants are not required to be a member of a Local Celebrant Group, but do need to demonstrate an engagement with the network in some other way in order to meet the requirements of accreditation (see engagement definition in ‘Accreditation’ recommendation section below)
5 / Celebrants can be members of any local celebrant group – it does not have to be geographically located within their region or nation. They can also be a member of as many groups as they want
6 / The number of local celebrant groups in the pilot regions/nations has increased as a result of the support that celebrant network support coordinators have provided. This support will be provided by the coordinators now being appointed in each region/nation. It would be useful to review the impact of this in 2018 to see if celebrants feel they have better access to a local celebrant group
7 / The Terms of Reference for local celebrant groups in the appendix will be adopted by the Network

Peer Review Observations