Universal Referral Program (URP)

[tursiops]

The quote from the PADI Pros site does seem to suggest that PADI pros can participate in the program as before, though.

Yes, but if your bible is the IM and you are not a Training Bulletin (from 2003!) and website wienie, how would you even know today that it is OK? PADI's point is it is not a PADI program, so you can do what you want...it is your problem, not theirs. They are not letting that monkey get on their back. And why would NAUI (for example) want me, who knows nothing of their standards, certifying their student?

 

[boulderjohn]

Yes, but if your bible is the IM and you are not a Training Bulletin (from 2003!) and website wienie, how would you even know today that it is OK? PADI's point is it is not a PADI program, so you can do what you want...it is your problem, not theirs. They are not letting that monkey get on their back. And why would NAUI (for example) want me, who knows nothing of their standards, certifying their student?

When I was debating vigorously with PADI about their wording (or lack of it) on rules for overhead environments, they told me that all PADI pros and all dive operators around the world must be aware that some overheads, such a shim-throughs, are OK for OW divers because the 4th quarter Training Bulletin from 2001 said it was even OK to take OW students through a short overhead during an OW certification dive.

Ao, apparently as PADI Pros we should have committed the key ideas from all training bulletins form all time to our memory banks. Non-PADI pros, such as non-PADI dive operators, should have done the same.

 

[boulderjohn]

Here is the SSI Universal Referral form, found on the website of a dive operation that only crossed over to SSI about 2 years ago, so it has to be current.
https://www.a1scuba.com/documents/forms/SSI-Referral-Form.pdf

 

[boulderjohn]

Here is the NAUI Universal Referral form.
https://cdn.website-editor.net/2d45dd3e57b84ebe89fffd9f1c4b98d2/files/uploaded/nauirefferalform.pdf

 

[boulderjohn]

Here is the SDI Global Referral form
https://www.tdisdi.com/UserFiles/File/SDI/Referal/global_referral.pdf

 

[ChuckP]

Not sure what you mean nor to whom ("someone" and "he") you are referring.

My point is the current IM does not mention Universal Referrals, other than obliquely by saying you can accept a non-PADI student but you are to give them a PADI certification after certain hurdles.
NOT in the IM is the specific info about Universal Referrals, which are advised against by PADI for the reasons given. I tend to agree with them; I have no idea what is in a NAUI open water course today (the one I took was 36 years ago) so how can I say the student is meeting the NAUI standards and send them back for a NAUI card?

This is the post (below) I was talking about, I only looked in the general standards the other night and what he posted below is from the OW section - to me, all the stuff that they are referencing that must be completed combined with a confined water dive skills review makes sense. From your post of the PADI website, it seems they are allowing the instructor to make the yes no call with lots of warnings

Referrals from Other Organizations
When receiving a referred diver from another training organization for course completion, follow the Referral Procedures in the General Standards and Procedures Guide. To assess the referred diver’s knowledge and skills, administer the Open Water Diver Online Quick Review, ReActivate Quick Review or Open Water Diver course final exam, and conduct a confined water dive that reviews Open Water Diver course skills in preparation for open water training dives.

Basically you are performing a condensed PADI Knowledge Development and Confined Water course as part of accepting the referral from another organization.

I think the big difference between the current referral process and the old URP is that in the current process the PADI instructor performing the Open Water certification dives for a NAUI referral would issue a PADI Open Water Certification. I believe the old URP process had the instructor complete a document and the student would be certified as a NAUI Open Water Diver by the original referring instructor.

 

[shurite7]

When i lived in the islands the dive operator (who used PADI) accepted universal referrals so long as the student had the correct paperwork. We had no problem accepting URPs. The staff did gripe because they didn’t get credit for the cert, but during a staff meeting everyone agreed students coming from the other agencies were better prepared.

I made the mistake of certifying (I am NAUI & PADI) one of the referrals who was NAUI. The original instructor and dive shop pitched a fit and sent me nasty emails for doing that. At the time i wasn’t as familiar with the URP. From that point on I read through the students paperwork and sent them back (after they completed all the checkout dives and their vacation) back to the original instructor for certification.

Other than that one issue we never had any issues with URPs.