Qualifying Professional Development Workshops and Training. Training is defined as: Specialized training, formal education, or advanced professional learning intended to help fish and wildlife biologists maintain/improve their professional knowledge, competence, skills and effectiveness. Professional Development Workshops are defined as: Workshops established to provide a forum for fish and wildlife professionals to interact with each other on new research, management, enforcement and administrative practices, or for fish and wildlife professionals to interact with experts in other applicable fields (e.g., range management, geomorphology, energy development) and to use this new information to promote better management of species or administration of FWP. Employees must annually, within each fiscal year, complete a minimum of 8 hours of qualifying Training and/or Professional Development Workshops in EACH of the following two categories (examples of qualifying Training and Professional Development Workshops are provided in Appendix 1 and Appendix 2) during three or more fiscal years the employee has served at their current Biologist Level: Technical/Biological Training. Qualified elective training in this category is intended to improve and maintain an employee's technical skills, ensure that employees acquire and maintain the best and most current relevant technical/biological job skills and information, promote a better understanding of FWP's organizational and administrative processes, and ensure the employee can perform their duties in the safest and most efficient means possible. Qualified training includes biologically technical trainings such as Population Sampling, Habitat Restoration Techniques, Analysis methods, and training on safe operation of equipment such as electrofishing safety, boat safety, ATV safety, and aircraft safety which would allow the biologist to perform their duties more effectively and safely. Introductory and overview-type training such as Excel for beginners, MyFWP portal, FWP Mapper and basic first-aid/CPR/Stop- the-Bleed aren’t considered qualified training. TWS/AFS and Great Plains Fisheries Workers annual plenary sessions and concurrent sessions also do not count as Professional Workshops and/or Trainings.
Qualifying Professional Development Workshops and Training. Professional Development Workshops and Training that qualifies to be considered by the Progression Review Committee (as described in Section 2) must meet the following criteria:
