It’s our job to help you find the training you need – and help you understand what is required for a training to count. We approve trainings, verify attendance, and enter documented professional development into your BFIS Quality and Credential account.
Vermont’s Unified Training Criteria require that trainings and college coursework are:
- Offered by a training organization that meets quality criteria;
- Documented by a certificate or transcript that meets verification criteria; and
- Focused on information that meets content criteria.
You can learn more about these criteria via the links in the sidebar, but the most important step is to make sure you choose trainings offered by an approved training organization.
How to Document Your Training
If your training was hosted by a Northern Lights-approved Sponsor, you don’t need to submit any documentation to Northern Lights. The Sponsor will submit attendance to us directly. For any other trainings or college coursework, you must submit a Verification Cover Sheet and your training certificate or transcript.
A valid training certificate must include:
- The name of the organization hosting the training;
- The training title and description of training content;
- Date, time, and total training hours; and
- Your name as the participant
A valid transcript must:
- Be an official or unofficial transcript issued and signed by the college or university registrar (photocopied or scanned copies of official or unofficial transcripts are also accepted as long as all required information is legible);
- Include the college name, your full name, course name/department, grades received, and dates completed;
- Be submitted to Northern Lights by email as a PDF attachment or by postal mail (no faxes are accepted);
- Show that you achieved a grade of C- or higher in your coursework.
If you have taken coursework at CCV, you can submit your transcripts to Northern Lights at no cost to you! Please note, we are not able to accept printouts from your student web portal.
Submitting Documents Securely
Protecting your data is important to us, and we encourage you to use a secure file transfer to send us your documents. If you follow the steps below, you can use a service called ZendTo to send your documents securely to Northern Lights.
- Visit https://zendto.vsc.edu/ and select “Drop-off”
- On the next page, enter your name and email address and ZendTo will send you an email to confirm your identity
- In their confirmation email, you’ll find a ZendTo link – click the link and it will open a ZendTo portal you can use to securely send us your documents.
- Upload your documents and send the message to professional.development@ccv.edu
What Happens Next
- All documents received by Northern Lights are processed in the order they are received.
- It typically takes 2-4 weeks for documents to be entered into BFIS quality and credential accounts; during high volume periods, it can take up to 6 weeks.
- If after 30 days you do not see your document listed in your account, contact your Northern Lights Resource Advisor for support. Please do not resend the document unless Northern Lights specifically asks you to do so.
- If we can’t enter a document into your account, we will send an email to explain why; please be sure you keep your email address updated in your BFIS account so you receive these notifications
