#OTalk 2nd Feb 2016 – When does routine work activity become Continuing Professional Development?

Join @Otalk_ for #Otalk on 2/2/16 hosted with @SLawsonOT Sarah Lawson. @hearled Deb Hearle will also be lurking. Sarah and Deb are both from the @TRAMmCPD team (www.TRAMmCPD.com)

As health and care registered professionals, we as occupational therapists, are required to adhere to the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) Standards for CPD (HCPC, 2012). Our CPD should be over and above our everyday working practice. Our everyday practice involves the assessment of service users to provide a benchmark for measurement of outcomes it also requires us to provide up to date evidence based interventions. CPD is one vehicle for ensuring a minimum level of practice standard.

From feedback received through our work with TRAMmCPD (Morris et al, 2011; Lawson et al, 2014; Hearle et al, 2016) there appears to be a lack of clarity amongst some practitioners about when professional development through everyday work activity can be counted CPD. Clarification is important, in particular when recording CPD in preparation for the biennial HCPC audit.

We presented a poster with this title at the College of Occupational Therapists 2015 Annual Conference (for a copy of our abstract contact @OTSM2011 or @TRAMmCPD) and would like, in this week’s #otalk to further explore and debate the following:

• When do you consider that your everyday work has become CPD?

• Do you understand what the differences are between routine occupational therapy practice and CPD?

• In your opinion does supervision, either as a supervisee or supervisor count as CPD?

• Do you understand what to record as evidence of your CPD?

• What about students – how do we clarify CPD for them?

• Do students engage in CPD and if so, how do you differentiate between the work they do as part of University expectations and CPD?

REFERENCES

Health & Care Professions Council (2012) Your guide to Our Standards of Continuing Professional Development. London: Health & Care Professions Council

Hearle, D, Lawson, S & Morris, R (2016) A Strategic Guide to CPD for Health and Social Care Professionals: The TRAMm Model. Keswick: M&K Publishing

Lawson, S; Morris, R; & Hearle, D. (2014) A Continuous, Dynamic and Strategic Journey. Occupational Therapy News College of Occupational Therapists 22(5) p34

Morris, R., Salmon, T., Lawson, S., Leadbitter, A., Morris, M., Margaret Mandizha-Walker and Hearle, D. (2011) Creativity Through Appreciative Inquiry. Occupational Therapy News. College of Occupational Therapists 19(6) pp26-27