Purpose
The purpose of the Certification Program in Social Ecology and Public Policy is to prepare individuals with the knowledge and skills to implement a social ecological approach to research and policy formation related to:
   • Watershed Restoration
   • Natural Resource Management
   • Social Service Delivery
   • Urban Development
   • Small Town Settlement

A social ecological approach incorporates key aspects of both the social and biophysical environments in order to foster productive harmony.

One of the key purposes of the certification program is to facilitate compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) Policy Section 101 and Environmental Justice Guidelines for the United States (US) as well as other national governments and international bodies that have adopted environmental regulations based on the US model. For example federal agencies must respond to the pressure that the US Congress has applied in its recent Planning legislation and new Fire Recovery approved for the Departments of Interior (BLM) and the USDA Forest Service. The new mandates call for community-based stewardship for ecosystem recovery as the primary vehicle for this multi-billion dollar effort. As there are very few resource managers trained to work in the social/culture side of NEPA, a critical shortage of qualified social ecologists exists. This historic weakness will be addressed through this certification program.

If society is going to give scientific attention to the social/cultural side of NEPA and Section 101, the U.S. agencies, corporations and communities will need 800 certified Applied Social Ecologists with a public policy orientation within the next 3 years and beyond. Preister and Kent contend in their NEPA paper published in April 2001: "... that projects using this productive harmony approach will foster community, landscape, and ecosystem health in degrees unprecedented since the passing of NEPA 30 years ago" (Preister and Kent 2001).

Recruitment for Participants in Social Ecology and Public Policy
1. Federal Agencies
A large market area for certification is the current or newly hired resource specialists in place in the Forest Service or BLM planning programs, expanded recovery program, and natural resource managers for public lands throughout the west. In addition, all federal agencies with NEPA related responsibilities have expressed interest in certification in social ecology. These include: the Departments of Interior (Bureau of Land Management; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service); the U.S. Department of Agriculture (all resource agencies including U.S. Forest Service); the Environmental Protection Agency; the Department of Defense (all service branches-especially those bases which have encroachment issues); the Army Corp of Engineers; the U.S. Geological Service; and, the Public Health Service.

2. International Organizations
The second source of interested participants will be with projects associated with the United Nations, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, USAID, International Monetary Fund and other international bodies

3. States, Counties, Towns and Corporate Bodies
Western States concerned with their Enlibra doctrine, county and city governments, city governments, urban interface areas, corporations and companies doing business domestically and globally in project development and implementation, off-shore manufacturing, consulting (small and larger scale firms), mineral extraction, health and human service and governmental contracting.

4. Foreign Governments
The forth market area for participants is working with the eighty plus foreign governments who have approved their own environmental protection laws patterned after the United States NEPA, but have not implemented the critical elements of the productive harmony requirements. These requirements call for maintaining a balance among the physical, biological, social, cultural and economic environments when implementing projects. The CSEPP has worked in many countries (see client list) under these auspices.

5. Students
Finally, the student population of the sponsoring college is a target area for certification. These courses can be non-credit or for credit. Through scholarship and student initiative, it is expected that a number of students would choose Social Ecology and Public Policy as a career or a career supplement.

Standards for Certification

The standards for the Center for Social Ecology and Public Policy (CSEPP) certification have been developed by practitioners James Kent, Kevin Preister, Tom Baker and Dan Baharav working in this field for 35 years. The Center draws on that 35-year history, starting with the Foundation for Urban and Neighborhood Development (FUND), Inc., in 1967, and including James Kent Associates in 1988, Social Ecology Associates in 1997, and the JKA Group beginning in 1998. The theoretical development and practical accomplishments of this effort has been documented in numerous publications. Its main features are summarized in Social Ecology: A New Pathway to Watershed Restoration (referenced below at Sources Sited)

The CSEPP standards for certification in Social Ecology and Public Policy are based on demonstrated competency in the following areas:

  1. Productive Harmony and Bio-Social Ecosystems;
  2. The Functioning of Informal Network Systems;
  3. The Discovery Process™
  4. Social Capital Generation and Integrated Resource Management
  5. The Human Geographic Issue Management System™.

Certification Competencies

All certification competencies share these characteristics:

  • The conceptual goal is to have the participant learn how to predict, participate in and control one's environment in a manner that empowers others through engaging and interacting at the knowledge and wisdom level of growth and development.
  • The applied goal is to understand the growth of people by proceeding with projects through mobilization of informal systems working with the entire social, cultural, economic, physical and biological elements in a specific environment.
  • This website will be used for part of the learning agenda, especially the updates and certain content instruction. Core learning will be experiential and based on both classroom and field work associated with project management.

Through attending workshops or seminars, completing on-site project work, or implementing an applied Project of Excellence, students are able to obtain the following competencies for certification. The competencies are designed to be both cumulative and freestanding. Learners can earn certifications sequentially, or enter the process for any competency, as long as the requirements for each concept area are met.

Competency Certification for Advisor Qualification. [Advisor in Social Ecology and Public Policy] A 1.5-day executive seminar (a so-called "plunge" seminar) providing an overview of social ecology and public policy with several case examples of its application. (12 hours)
Competency Certification for Learning Community. [Community Fellow in Social Ecology and Public Policy] A 3-day course designed to introduce participants to the descriptive process of community fieldwork as it relates to public policy issues. Two courses offered at the BLM's National Training Center, "Community Based Partnership" and "Learning Community: Linking People, Place and Perspectives," will qualify for this level, as well as a stand alone course offered by the Center for Social Ecology and Public Policy. (22 hours)
Competency Certification for The Discovery ProcessT. [Associate Fellow for Social Ecology and Public Policy] A five-day intensive experience, usually conducted on-site, and including citizens as well as agency managers, this course is targeted to a current project whose object is "cultural alignment" between the change force and the host community. (36 hours)
Competency Certification for Social Ecology in Project Management. [Senior Fellow Status] This course is designed over a three-month period to guide project managers and associated staff through the Discovery Process and the Human Geographic Issue Management System. A Productive Harmony Assessment and a recommended project management plan are products of this certification competency. (120 hours)
Competency Certification for the Project of Excellence (POE). [Executive Fellow Status] The Project of Excellence (POE), the apex of the certification process, is conceived as a six-month process. The POE will focus on the learner's ability to design and carry out a project that creates or increases productive harmony between the social and natural environments. The base of the learning will be experiential and virtual in nature, meaning the learner does not have to be in a physical place (on campus) to earn the designation or the credit, nor has to be in a specific classification or job in order to participate. (360 hours)

Participants in the certification program have a choice about whether to obtain credit for these courses or only take certification without credit. For many natural resource managers and line staff, certification alone is sufficient for professional advancement and they may have little interest in pursuing a degree. For students or other learners, credit is a necessary part of involvement and signals their entry into a growing, multi-disciplinary field (Social Ecology and Public Policy). In this manner, students on campus get into the field with seasoned managers for the Certification courses.

Sources Cited

2001 "Using Social Ecology to Meet the Productive Harmony Intent of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)," Kevin Preister and James A. Kent, Hastings West-Northwest Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, Volume 7, Issue 3, Spring, pp. 235-251. Berkeley, CA.: Hastings College of the Law.

2000 "Restoring Watershed Health: Peacetime Military Contributions and Federal Wide Agency Implications", Dr. Diane C. Drigot, Federal Facilities Environmental Journal, Washington, D.C.

1999 "Methods for the Development of Human Geographic Boundaries and Their Uses", James A. Kent and Kevin Preister in partial completion of Cooperative Agreement No. 1422-P850-A8-0015 between James Kent Associates and the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Task Order No. 001.

1997 "Social Ecology: A New Pathway to Watershed Restoration." Kevin Preister and James Kent, in Watershed Restoration: Principles and Practices, by Jack E. Williams, Michael P. Dombeck and Christopher A. Wood, Editors, pp. 28-48. Bethesda, Md.: The American Fisheries Society.

1994 "Thinking beyond Our Borders: A Bio-social Ecosystem Approach to Resource Management on Public Land." Anchorage, AK: National Military Fish and Wildlife, James Kent, Dan Baharav and Diane Drigot.

1992 "Habitat Continuum, Corridors and Human Diversity." Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Society for Conservation Biology, Dan Baharav and James Kent.