Determining Public Health, Safety, and Welfare Classification

Professional development takes the form of a wide range of subjects that relate directly and indirectly to the practice of landscape architecture.  In some jurisdictions, licensees must obtain continuing education that pertains to public health, safety, and welfare (HSW). This system requires providers to classify HSW courses as those in which at least seventy-five (75) percent of the subject matter applies the principles of mathematical, physical, and social sciences in consultation, evaluation, planning, design (including, but not limited to the preparation and filing of plans, drawings, specifications, and other contract documents), and administration of contracts relative to projects principally directed at the functional and aesthetic use and preservation of land.  

Health, Safety, and Welfare subjects include:

• Building codes
• Code of ethics
• Codes, acts, laws, and regulations governing the practice of landscape architecture
• Construction administration, including construction contracts
• Construction documents
• Design of environmental systems
• Environmental process and analysis
• Erosion control methods
• Grading
• Horticulture
• Irrigation methods
• Land planning and land use analysis
•  Landscape preservation, landscape restoration and adaptive reuse
• Lateral forces
• Natural hazards – impact of earthquake, hurricane, fire, or flood related to site design
• Pedestrian and vehicular circulation
• Planting design
• Resource conservation and management
• Roadway design principles
• Site accessibility, including Americans with Disabilities Act standards for accessible site design
• Site and soils analysis
• Site design and engineering, including materials, methods, technologies, and applications
• Site security and safety
• Storm water management, surface and subsoil drainage
• Structural systems considerations
• Surveying methods and techniques as they affect landscape architecture
• Sustainable design, including techniques related to energy efficiency
• Use of site materials and methods of site construction
• Vegetative management
• Wetlands
• Zoning as it relates to the improvement and/or protection of the public health, safety, and welfare
• Other matters of law and ethics that contribute to the health, safety, and welfare of the public

The following subjects should not be designated as HSW:

• Accounting/financial planning
• Basic AutoCAD
• Expanding a design professional's business
• General office management
• Insurance
• Laws related to arbitration, mediation, liens (unless they relate to safeguarding the health, safety, and welfare of the public), real estate, real estate development
• Limiting the design professional's liability
• Marketing and public relations
• Personal development
• Project management related to profitability and maximizing fees
• Risk management
• Succession planning