Easy Read summary
A membership badge should tell you three things. Someone checked the person. The person agreed to be listed. You can check the record yourself. ADRGP does not sell badges. It reviews each application.
Across the dispute resolution sector, the word “member” carries very different weights. Sometimes it means a paid subscription. Sometimes it means attendance at a course. Sometimes it means an assessment against published criteria. The public cannot tell the difference unless the body says so plainly.
ADRGP takes the third position. Membership follows a review, a recorded decision and, where a profile is published, the member's field-by-field consent. Nothing is automatic: not a training certificate, not a job title, and not a payment.
This has three practical consequences.
First, a directory listing is not a marketing entitlement. It is a publication decision made by a person who has opted in. If the member later withdraws consent, the listing goes. If the body suspends the member, the listing goes. The directory should be the most conservative page on the website, not the most promotional.
Second, verification must be exact. Searching a name and finding a similar-looking record is not verification. ADRGP requires the membership or certificate reference, and returns only the approved fields. Employers and courts should treat a fuzzy match as no match.
Third, membership must be bounded. It is not a licence to practise, a court appointment, an accreditation of a training provider, or a guarantee of work. Those are separate legal and institutional acts. A professional body that blurs them creates risk for the very practitioners it represents.
The hard work is not the badge. It is the register behind it: consent records, status history, evidence of review, suspension rules and an audit trail. That is what makes the badge worth checking.