40 Years of Safety Professionalism
40 Years of Safety Professionalism
Celebrating 40 years in service to the safety, health and environmental profession, the Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) raised the bar for safety practitioners from the “guys who put posters up” to today’s safety professional crafting ways to eliminate hazards, manage safety standards and compliance.
Since the late 1960s, the profession gradually accepted certification as the most important step in professional development and has resulted in a higher level of knowledge and expertise. From humble beginnings to today’s “gold standard,” BCSP, with the Certified Safety Professional (CSP) certification, remains the leader in advancing the safety, health and environmental professional.
Origin
In 1967, the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) created an Ad Hoc study committee to consider the potential for a certification program for the safety profession and to outline how to set up a program. The committee’s report resulted in the creation of the Board of Certified Safety Professionals as an independent certification board. In 1969, BCSP became a not-for-profit corporation in the State of Illinois.
Governance
The founders of BCSP established the organization as a not-for-profit corporation in Illinois, independent of membership organizations. Its charter is very narrow, restricted to certifications and its mission is limited. Its only members are those who serve on the Board of Directors at any one time. BCSP has made minimum changes to its initial corporate charter which allows the organization to not only certify safety professionals but also to certify other participants in safety.
Nine people served on the first Board of Directors. Sponsoring organizations were added in 1974. Recently, sponsoring organizations were changed to BCSP membership organizations with the sole responsibility of nominating people to a pool of candidates for board positions. Over the years, the board has changed to its present configuration of thirteen people – six elected from the membership organizations' pool, six at-large members elected from the profession at large and one public director.
BCSP’s first office was in the ASSE headquarters in Park Ridge, Illinois. In 1974, BCSP moved its office to Champaign, Illinois, and hired its first Executive Secretary in 1976. The relocation helped gain recognition that BCSP was an independent corporation and not part of ASSE. In 1982, BCSP took occupancy of its own office building in Savoy, Illinois. An addition, completed in 1993, expanded the BCSP office to about 7,200 square feet. Today, BCSP has twenty full-time employees. The staff is led by an Executive Director who reports to the Board of Directors.
Professional Standards
A major function of a certifying board is setting professional standards for education and experience. During BCSP’s early years, CSP applicants had to have a bachelor’s degree and ten years of professional safety experience or eighteen years experience if they did not have a bachelor’s degree.
When the first examination was offered in 1972 and until 1985, candidates had to have a minimum of five years of professional safety experience. In 1985, the requirement was changed to four and a half years with the first six months counting as a training period. Since the beginning, graduate degrees could substitute for some of the required experience.
The educational requirement has always been a bachelor’s degree. Until the end of 1997, applicants could substitute experience for the bachelor’s degree. As degrees in safety expanded and program accreditation initiated by ASSE grew, the CSP has focused on a bachelor’s degree in safety holding program accreditation acceptable to BCSP as the model degree. Over the years, a point scheme emerged for defining credit from various disciplines.
Subsequently in 1998, BCSP allowed associate degrees in safety and health or the environment to substitute, leading to the minimum educational qualifications as a bachelor’s degree in any field or an associate’s degree in safety and health. Today, BCSP only accepts degrees from accredited schools.
The desire to recognize graduates from ABET-ASAC accredited safety degree programs led BCSP to create the Graduate Safety Practitioner (GSP) designation in 2006. Graduates in the GSP program are awarded the GSP designation, receive a waiver of the CSP application fee and the Safety Fundamentals examination and are recognized as a CSP candidate in process.
Examinations
The first examination leading to the CSP was offered in October 1972. At that time, candidates needed to pass one examination containing 300 questions. In 1978, BCSP achieved the originally planned examination model in which one examination covered basic safety information and a second examination covered applied safety information. Initially, the first examination was called the Core Examination and was changed to the Safety Fundamentals Examination in 1991.
When BCSP introduced the two-examination model, candidates could choose the Comprehensive Practice Examination, the Engineering Aspects or Management Aspects Examinations. Later, BCSP added the System Safety Aspects (1981), Product Safety Aspects (1981), and Construction Safety Aspects (1994) Examinations. All of these examinations covered the same subjects, but differed in the portion of questions devoted to major subjects and in the context of some questions.
The BCSP Board moved to follow the specialization model of medicine, law and other fields in which practitioners must demonstrate competence in general practice first before demonstrating competence in a specialty. BCSP offered special examinations for construction, system safety and ergonomics. In developing the new CSP specialty examinations, a separate role delineation workshop and validation survey formed the basis for the contents of each examination. The new specialties assumed candidates would have already demonstrated general knowledge in professional safety practice and limited the validation to that which is unique to the specialty practice area. The initial specialty examinations were discontinued in 1996. Beginning in 1997, all CSP candidates were required to pass the Comprehensive Practice Examination.
From the beginning, CSP examinations relied on validation data to determine the subjects covered and the distribution of questions among subjects. Over the years, the standards for validating examination contents increased. Initially, BCSP relied on the extensive study of safety and health practices funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). In the early 1990s, BCSP began its own validation study for all of the CSP examinations, including specialty examinations, through job analysis studies and validation surveys of practitioners. In 1999, BCSP completed the most comprehensive study of professional safety practice since the NIOSH study. The study was structured around professional safety tasks, rather than major and minor subjects.
The last major change for examinations occurred in 1997 when all exams became computer based eliminating the need for paper examinations.
Para-Professional Certifications
Through a joint venture between the American Board of Industrial Hygiene (ABIH) and BCSP, safety and health certification at the para-professional level began in 1985. The joint organization eventually became known as The Council on Certification of Health, Environmental and Safety Technologists (CCHEST). The initial certification was the Occupational Health and Safety Technologist (OHST) with the Certified Loss Control Specialist (CLCS) as an alternate title in 2008. In 1993, the Construction Health and Safety Technician (CHST) was added along with the Safety Trained Supervisor (STS) in 1994. In 2008, BCSP purchased ABIH's interests in CCHEST. Currently, CCHEST operates as a division of BCSP.
Recognition
BCSP has achieved the highest standards for voluntary certifications. The CSP achieved its first accreditation in 1993 from The Council of Engineering and Scientific Specialty Board (CESB). In 1994, the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) accredited the CSP. In 2002, the National Skill Standards Board (NSSB) of the federal government recognized the CSP as being compliant with its standards.
Over the years, recognition grew for the CSP among member organizations, employers, government agencies and others. Many organizations use the CSP as a qualification for membership level or status. The number of advertisements for safety professionals in Professional Safety, including the CSP as a required or desired qualification, has grown from 20% in 1980 to 60% in 1999. The number of federal, state and local governments recognizing the CSP in employment standards, qualifications for safety functions or tasks, or other considerations has become extensive with several private and government organizations using the CSP in contracts.
The Future
Since the inception of the CSP, over 21,000 individuals have achieved the certification. Currently, there are 12,000 who hold it. Every day new safety professionals start the process of becoming CSPs. As BCSP moves forward, it will continue to focus on providing high-quality certifications that assist individuals involved in safety, health and environmental practice and add value for those holding it.
