Many clients ask whether our fire marshals and safety guards are certified to the Dutch VCA-VOL standards. This is a requirement for many contractors and managerial staff. The certificate shows that you have sufficient knowledge about basic safety of people in a working environment. Do you aspire to a career as a fire marshal or a safety guard? Then this course is an absolute must.
About the course
VCA is short for VGM (Veiligheid, Gezondheid, Milieu) Checklist voor Aannemers, i.e. Health, Safety, Environment Checklist for Contractors. The Basic Safety course of the BWH Academy run according to the Dutch VCA works with all the latest teaching materials. Besides the standard learning pathway, we have added serious gaming, escape rooms, and virtual reality to our course package. This interactive training module offers an extra quality assurance as part of a study programme that goes beyond merely passing for a certificate. We want our students to develop their personal knowledge and skills and thus become of added value to the clients or organisations they work for.
We offer VCA courses for both employees (Basis-VCA) and for contractors or temporary employment agencies (VOL-VCA).
Some of the topics discussed in this course are:
- Health and Safety legislation (the Dutch Occupational Health and Safety Act - ARBO-wet)
- The occurrence of an incident
- Promoting safe working practices
- Safety procedures
- Safety for managers
- Practical instructions
- Task and risk analysis, LMRA
- Toolbox meeting
- Company emergency plan
- Sources of danger
- Toxicology
- Ergonomics
- Sector-specific information
- Exam training / multiple choice questions
Duration of the training course
This is a two-day course. An examination will be held at the end of the second day and the students will hear their results immediately afterwards.
Objective of the training course
The course contributes to a safer working environment by teaching the students, generally managerial staff, which specific safety requirements and regulations must be observed when carrying out work. They are also taught how to be accountable to the people who carry out the work, in line with health and safety legislation (Dutch ARBO-wet) and VCA-SSVV. You will learn how to recognise risks and take appropriate measures to control them.
Target group
Management staff
Admission requirements
This course does not require any specific prior education and often forms the basis for the other certifications. This means that an education for government-certified fire marshal is not a requirement.
Certificate
The course ends with an examination according to the SSVV-BESACC requirements. You will hear your results immediately after the examination. The certificate is personal and is valid for ten years.
Other recommended training courses
This certificate is often a supplementary requirement in the petrochemical industry or in other industries. Taking some other BWH Academy courses as well is advisable. Particularly useful courses in this respect are those on Basic Safety according to Dutch VCA and on Self-contained breathing apparatus. They are useful for fire marshals as well as for industrial employees who, for example, have to wear breathing equipment during their work. For fire safety purposes, the training course on Small fire extinguishing equipment is also well worth considering.
An Emergency Rescue Team certificate is also indispensable in order to become an all-round safety professional.
About the Brandwacht Academy
We have set up our BWH Academy training centre to train fire marshals and others who need fire safety skills. We train them according to the VCA Infra requirements and there is room to go into the subject matter in extra detail so that students are optimally prepared for their examinations.
Our training centre is not only there for fire marshals. We can also teach in-company training courses for employees of companies in other sectors, e.g. the building sector or the petrochemical industry, who also need to measure gas or have to be able to work with a self-contained breathing apparatus.
View the other courses offered by the BWH Academy.