CEDTP Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What is CEDTP training?
Community economic development is an intensely competitive field. Regardless of the size of your budget or region, using best practices and well established tools can help you achieve success in growing and expanding a diverse, resilient community.
Our Community Economic Development Training Program (CEDTP) provides practical information that can be directly applied to your economic development practice. CEDTP courses:
§ Clearly define the community economic development function, including roles of volunteers, elected officials and staff
§ Promote community-wide participation in future planning
§ Encourage closer working relationships between federal, provincial, regional and municipal agencies
§ Eliminate barriers between towns and rural jurisdictions
§ Focus on using human and financial resources more effectively and efficiently
§ Provide an interactive setting from which to learn new tools and practices
2. What courses does EDA offer?
EDA is pleased to offer the following CEDTP courses on a regular basis:
§ Economic Development–Establishing the Foundation: Learn the principles, theories and fundamentals of economic development that form the basic foundation of every community. (2-day course)
§ Business Retention and Expansion: Integrate effective assessment and planning tools in order to help you build and retain a strong business community.
§ Business and Investment Attraction: Discover the important role business and investment attraction plays in advancing your economic development strategy.
§ Opportunity Identification: Uncover fundamental principles that will help you identify, assess, and nurture potential opportunities for economic growth.
§ Project Management in Economic Development: Learn how to adopt a project management framework to plan and execute successful economic development activities in your community.
§ The Site Selection Process: Acquire an in-depth understanding of the site selection process in economic development, including how to attract site selectors to your community.
§ Supporting Agriculture through Economic Development: Adopt assessment and planning tools to support and expand your agriculture sector by implementing collaborative economic development activities.
3. What is the cost of each course?
2-day course costs $2950 + Trainer expenses + GST
1-day courses cost $1750 + Trainer expenses + GST
We try to provide the Trainer closest to the course location in order to reduce expenses as much as possible.
4. What does the cost include?
The cost of the course includes: course delivery by professional Trainer, course manuals delivered to the Host Community, course evaluation sheets, mailed Certificates of Completion to course participants.
5. Can participants receive credits from these courses towards their EcD designation?
The awarding of EDAC accreditation points towards an EcD designation is as follows:
§ Basic Community Economic Development Training Program- 6 credits
§ Advanced Training Program- 5 credits per course
If you wish to obtain the EDAC credits for this course, the fee is $30.00+GST for the Basic Program and $30+GST for each of the additional Advanced Courses. Cheques are to be made payable to and mailed to Economic Developers Alberta. Participants must ensure they include a copy of their completion certificate(s) and correct mailing address.
6. Who can book a course?
Communities, regions and organizations interested in hosting community economic development courses in their region are the best candidates to book courses as they have the ability to market the program in their local area, and benefit from the skills derived from the training.
7. Where do the courses take place?
The Host is responsible for selecting the course location. Generally, it is in a meeting room that holds approximately 22 people comfortably.
8. Where can I find a listing of upcoming courses?
EDA is now adding courses on their website (www.edaalberta.ca) so our members and the general public can view the upcoming course dates and locations.
We are also looking at ways to keep track of course inquiries in case one or two regions want to partner together to offer a course.
9. How much time do the courses take?
Generally the courses run 9:00-4:00 PM. The Host needs to decide whether they wish to provide lunch and/or coffee service during the course.
10. How do I book a course?
§ Communities interested in hosting a course contact the EDA office in order to propose their desired course name, possible date/s, time and location.
§ EDA contacts a Trainer closest to the proposed location to determine their availability. If available, EDA confirms date and time (usually 9:00 AM-4:00 PM) with the Host.
§ Once the date/s are agreed upon, two agreements are completed and signed: one by the Host and the other by the Trainer.
§ The Host has up to two weeks to cancel and the Cancellation Policy is stated on the signed agreement.
§ The Host books a meeting space for the course, and promotes the course to interested participants. You can have a maximum of 20 participants in the course.
§ Approximately two weeks before the course takes place, EDA arranges to ship course manuals, sign-in sheets and evaluation forms to the Host. The Host advises EDA in advance where course manuals are to be shipped.
§ On course day, the EDA Trainer facilitates the course utilizing the manuals provided. The course has been designed to be somewhat interactive.
§ Participants fill out evaluation forms at the end of the course
§ Host mails the evaluation forms back to the EDA office
§ EDA invoices the Host for the cost of the course + Trainer expenses + GST.