SAAHSP GRADING Promoting industry excellence!

“Self-praise is no recommendation,” but the acknowledgement from clients and industry is exactly what every business owner in any business thrives on.

While many products that do no harm are sought after, work ethic and professionalism are just as much part of a healthy business. Every discerning client wants results, but they also expect to be in safe hands.

While SAAHSP is the professional body guiding registered therapists on safe practice to make sure that all clients are protected, there are many places that do not belong to the professional body and do not promote safe practice or good ethics. How is SAAHSP changing the narrative?

To promote ethics and professionalism, SAAHSP launched its pilot project on grading late last year. Starting from within the organisation, we have focused on staff first.

“You are only as strong as your weakest link,” so they say. All our graded facilities submit completed application forms with a list of their qualified staff and their qualifications to register their facility and therapists with SAAHSP. We have registered schools, spas, salons and corporate members within our pilot project.

All additional training courses or hours that therapists do are then listed in our skillzbook to promote their professional development and register their hours. As a professional body, we ensure good evidence for qualified staff is registered, while the further training that is done is also registered to ensure they stay on top of their game. This creates public trust and gives facilities recognition for staff development.

Even though many employers, schools, spas, and salons work continuously and consistently to ensure their therapists remain accountable, responsible, and work within their scope of practice, all endeavours are lost when a handful of non-conforming facilities do harm to clients because they work out of scope. With declarations of commitment to ethics, site visits, ensuring that standard operations procedures exist, observing good work practices, doing third-party evaluations, and monitoring continual training while conforming to scope, we believe the new grading system is a great start to supporting ethical business practices.

It is only when there is constant vigilance from everyone within the industry that we can promote ethics and professionalism to support a safe industry for all. A complaints system allows the public to report issues, which our ethics committee can investigate.

President Feroza Fakir is the brainchild of SAAHSP grading system. She noticed the need for recognition of professionalism within the industry a long time ago.

Certification is expensive, but with her philanthropic mind and being the industry veteran whom she is, she has worked tirelessly with industry for industry. Together with her team, she has used the available tools with new innovative ideas to ensure a fair grading system is developed to promote professionalism with designated therapists within all graded facilities. This builds public trust while industry excellence is recognised. All of this is achieved without incurring significant financial costs.

The Pilot Grading System is part of SAAHSP membership benefits, and all members who register with SAAHSP are given the opportunity to get the first stage of grading as part of their membership.

This is one way we can regulate the industry to serve the public ethically and professionally while we continue to monitor and check facilities, ensuring all therapists perform within their scope. Continuing Professional Development points facilitate continuous professional development within the industry, enabling therapists to register additional training and demonstrate their ongoing learning, while also monitoring their progress.

We are very excited to announce that we have achieved our target of 50 pilot projects for the first quarter of 2024. Our industry has made us extremely proud. We thank all of our role players who participated in this pilot project.

The best accolade we received this past month was, “Where can I get my grading certificate. I want to also be seen as a professional role player within the industry.”

For more information, please email us at info@saahsp.co.za.

Celeste Peters, communications support, SAAHSP. Freelancer. Ambassador for Global Wellness Day and The Tides Wellness. An educator who is passionate about fairness, ethics and empowerment. Spa auditor and grading and standards consultant.