This article details the steps to become a qualified manual handling trainer as well as the steps to gain accredited manual handling certification for the persons you then teach.
The qualifications required to teach accredited manual handling awards and become a manual handling instructor have changed over the last couple of years. You can no longer teach accredited manual handling awards such as RQF or SCQF Qualifications with just a manual handling trainer award, as this will not be accepted by any of the UK awarding bodies.
Teaching Qualification
First and foremost if you want to be a trainer you will need to have an entry-level teaching qualification. The PDLSG – Planning and Delivering Learning Sessions to Groups Award or the ETA – Level 3 Award in Education and Training qualification gives the teaching award accepted by all awarding bodies. This course is nationally accredited and by its conclusion will allow the successful candidate to teach any subject they have experience in.
Manual Handling Qualifications
Ok, so you now have a teaching qualification either PDLSG or ETA that proves your competence as a trainer. What’s next is to match it up with some relevant experience. The easiest way to do this is to have a current manual handling certificate. Holding the teaching qualification and current experience will allow you to teach the following courses:
Safer Moving of People (For those doing the Patient Handling Trainer)
Insurance
Trainers will require public liability insurance to gain approval from awarding bodies but also to protect them in case a member of the public blames you for causing damage or injury. Also on insurance, a trainer is advised to take out professional indemnity insurance in case a member of your class accuses you of making a mistake, which they then taught and caused injury. Both of these insurances are around £120 to £140 per year.
Equipment
Below list of equipment is everything you will need:
Manual Handling PowerPoint (some companies will give this free on trainer courses, otherwise it can cost up to £90 )
Projector for Powerpoint presentations
Manual Handling Trainer Courses with Teaching Award
If you don’t already have a teaching award such as PDLSG or the Education and Training Award, then you can attend courses with Abertay International Training, QualSafe or Manual Handling Awards etc. For example courses from Abertay provide everything you need just click the link below to become a Manual Handling Trainer with includes the PDLSG teaching award. There are also trainer courses by distance learning on Zoom so no need to travel or spend further on Hotels etc.
Experience or Qualification in Manual Handling
Insurance as stated above
Equipment as listed above
Accredited Manual Handling Certifications
Now that you have followed the above and are now qualified as a First Aid Trainer, how do you gain accredited certification. Abertay Training's SafeCert Awards registered award at around 450 pounds. Both will allow you to teach accredited manual handling awards on the qualifications framework. They also provide a Patient Handling Trainer course if you wish to teach safer moving of people courses.
Once you have all the above, you then need to apply to one of the awarding bodies to apply to become an approved centre so that you can gain accredited first aid certifications for the candidates you then teach. There are many awarding bodies out there but one of the most reasonable for costs is SafeCert Awards. They cost 295 for centre approval with first aid certification at around 6 pounds each. There are also Highfield for centre approval 450 plus vat and certification costs at around 17 pounds. With awarding bodies all will require an annual spend and therefore cost you around 250 to 350 per year, but we included SafeCert Awards as there is no annual spend requirement. Before selecting your awarding body do your research, you can search for awarding bodies for manual; handling awards on google for all current information.
