C is for…

Creativity in CPD

UK Occupational Therapists, I don’t want to burst any bubbles of denial but did you know that the two yearly audit of CPD activity is coming up again this summer, ready for our November re-registration?

Is that nod you are giving me a smug, ‘my CPD folder is completely up to date’ or a slow nod of fear? My nod lies part way between these.

CPD for the uninitiated stands for Continuing Professional Development (or at least it does in this case).

This blog post will hopefully help you to see where you have completed CPD already, provide links to useful resources and hopefully make you less fearful of being randomly selected for audit and preparing your profile. (Come back again on April 21st where I’ll be talking about Reflection in more detail).

The first thing to say is that CPD is not just about attending courses, nowadays money to actually do this may be tight. See what the Health Professions Council (soon to become the Health and Care Professions Council) say constitutes CPD activity. What can you already tick off as having done in the last two years? What could you do in the next few months? Next see what they suggest can provide evidence of CPD. What can you gather together to put into a folder (whether this is in paper or electronic format)?

Now I called this post creativity in CPD because I believe that we may have to create these opportunities ourselves but I think we can also be creative with this.

• If you are reading this post then I suspect that you are engaged with social media. Why not summarise what you’ve learnt from your engagement with this over the past two years. What contacts or networks have you developed?

• Do you watch television programmes and films, read books, newspapers and magazines? What have these taught you about occupations, conditions, life… that you can apply to your practice?

• How can you demonstrate that what you do in your home life and spare time applies to development of professional skills, i.e. transferable skills?

• Have you experienced a situation that went really well? Do you know why? Can you read around the topic to see what theory might help you understand the situation better. Or can you be creative and write something from the Point of View of a colleague you were working with or the client. Note the additional insights this gives you so that you can try to replicate the positive experience next time.

• You don’t just have to write, you could capture your CPD through drawing, painting or photography. You could video yourself or tape an audio reflection (be sure to gain consent or maintain confidentiality with any means you use).

• Now if you do have money available for training in your department why not see if you can get sponsored to attend the Annual Conference in Brighton. I attended my first conference last year and I found it so useful. If you can’t attend follow the tweets on Twitter using the hashtag #cot2011.

• The BAOT/COT website has the Interactive Learning Opportunities Database available to members with links to relevant training and resources such as reflective tools.

• An excellent CPD activity would be to take a student on placement with you, why not speak to your department’s practice placement coordinator about this or if you are a private practitioner contact your local university.

So if you are called up for audit what will you be expected to do?

You will need to write a profile explaining the CPD activity you have completed over the last two years and how it has helped you meet the HPC’s 5 Standards of CPD. You also need to provide a few select examples of evidence to support this profile. Some of the documents you could use to check your activity against are, your job description and person specification, your appraisal documentation and KSF outline (if in the NHS). Also take a look at both your COT and HPC Codes of Ethics and Conduct and the HPC Standards of Proficiency for Occupational Therapists.

I hope you now feel you can you show your CPD has been continuous and is up to date, that you have completed a range of activities, that these have improved the quality of your practice and that it has been of benefit service users.

On this page you can find completed examples of a practitioner, manager or educator profile.

My final suggestion would be that we all aim to complete our profiles over the next few months rather than waiting for the audit, reviewing how far you’ve progressed over the last two years can be a positive experience and it can help show what we still have to learn so that we can plan goals for the next two years (after all it is called Continuing Professional Development). Why not do this as a departmental CPD activity and review your profiles with your colleagues?

Hoping this has been helpful – look forward to reading your comments and queries.