A pre-requisite is the underpinning knowledge that a student will need prior to progressing on to further or advanced study. The hair, beauty, aesthetic and holistic industry have set expected pre-requisites as a roadmap from foundation to advanced training. This natural progression allows the student to gain experience or understanding of the treatment or service and allows them to understand the effects one treatment may have on another.
Some courses will have a natural progression. For example, to be trained in Hot Stone Massage or Pregnancy Massage, the student will first need a certificate in Swedish massage. Other courses may require experience before moving onto advanced courses. An example would be intimate waxing, where a few months experience of regular waxing will allow the student to understand issues, troubleshoot and think of how their technique can make treatment more comfortable or lead to bruising. This is important when a student is out in the industry and not under the supervision of their trainer.
Courses that include breaking the skin, e.g. mesotherapy or electrolysis, will require a level 3 anatomy and physiology qualification or level 3 beauty therapy or higher. While students can often gain insurance through some providers without industry suggested pre-requisites, they may face other difficulties such as issues obtaining local authority licensing or getting insurance cover if or when they change underwriters or terms.
To know whether your course has any pre-requisites, you should consider who the course is for and if the course is a foundation or advanced treatment. To be sure, you should check that the students can obtain council licencing with their certificate(s) as well as insurance. If you are unsure of this yourself due to various councils/government bodies and insurance underwriters criteria, then you should inform the student to make their own checks before booking a course.
Some examples of pre-requisites are below:
