REPS SA

This week I met with Scott Schreuder, CEO of REPS SA.  REPS SA is South Africa’s arm of the Register of Exercise Professionals.  The Registers are well established in the Australia, Europe, UK and New Zealand, and you cannot work in the fitness profession in these countries, unless you are registered with REPS.  To be recognised by REPS, you have to hold a certificate from an accredited institution and you also need a valid CPR and First Aid certificate.  In some countries, applicants need professional indemnity insurance which they organise themselves and others may be able to access this insurance through their REPS body.  I see that FitSure is taking up the professional indemnity insurance for SA.

One of the things I wanted to tell you in this blog is about a development that occurred at the IHRSA convention in Milan last year.  All international representatives of REPS agreed to map their standards so that they could establish minimum professional standards internationally.  I am currently working with REPS SA to help identify which standards in SA map to the standards in the other countries.  Once this mapping is done, we really will have an international body representing the fitness profession.  Scott Schreuder tells me that REPS is making inroads into the profession in the USA as well.  Despite its incredible input to the fitness industry and its well respected contribution to sport science, the USA does not have one autonomous body that represents the industry as a whole.  This is not to say that there are not some great organisations, it is just that they lack autonomy.

I hear that REPS SA has had a really good uptake of membership; reaching almost two thousand members now.  Let’s hope that this membership continues to grow.  If there is a professional register then we have a profession.  A professional register gives the profession representation and it gives the profession status.  We support it fully at eta and because we do, we give our graduates a year’s membership once they have gone through their graduation ceremony. 

Linda Halliday

You can find out about REPS SA on www.repssa.com

You can find out about professional insurance on www.fitsure.co.za