Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is the reflection and learning activity that occupational therapists undertake throughout their career to maintain and improve their practice. It is the development of skills, knowledge, professional identity and ways of thinking, to practice safely and effectively (Interprofessional CPD and Lifelong Learning UK Working Group, 2019).
Occupational therapists are required by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) to renew their registration every two years. The renewal window is open until 31 October 2023. During renewal all occupational therapists will need to confirm that they meet HCPC standards of continuing professional development, and 2.5% will be asked to submit a CPD profile. This is demonstrate that they continue to meet the HCPC standards of proficiency for occupational therapists.
Everyone has different learning preferences, and professionals have choice, agency and responsibility for their own learning and development. CPD could be a range of different activities, including:
- Work-based learning: Reflecting on an experience at work, discussing and reflecting on a situation with a colleague or considering feedback from someone who draws on services.
- Professional activity: Teaching other people, supervising research or students, organising a journal club or mentoring someone else.
- Formal education: Writing an article or paper, attending a course accredited by a professional body, attending a conference or seminar.
- Self-directed learning: Reading journals or articles, listening to a podcast or watching a video.
We have outlined a selection of resources to support occupational therapists to reflect on their learning and ongoing development. These have been collated in consultation with a group of occupational therapists from Cumberland.
Celebrating occupational therapy
Underpinning occupational therapy is the recognition that activity and occupations (things that we need, want or have to do) are fundamental to a person’s wellbeing (Pearmain et al., 2021). Boniface et al. (2013) stress how important it is that occupational therapists recognise the significance of their role in supporting people’s occupational engagement, and its link with wellbeing (Pearmain et al., 2021).
Appreciative inquiry is an approach that supports you to learn from what has gone well. From this, good examples can be shared, and learning can be fed into the organisation about what supports good practice. The appreciative inquiry tool supports both individual and organisational improvement, and can be used to celebrate and promote occupational therapy practice.
Reflecting on experiences at work
These models can be used to support reflection on practice experiences. They can also be used to reflect learning, particularly in reflecting on how learning impacted your practice. All three tools were developed as part of the Supervisor Development Programme. While these are based on social work registration standards, the general governance is applicable to all social care supervisors and it fits with HCPC regulation requirements and RCOT professional standards for occupational therapy practice conducts and ethics.
You can use this tool individually or in group supervision to talk through a situation and identify insights that feed into action planning. It is also a useful tool for development as it helps you to identify learning from your experiences.
Appreciative inquiry is an approach that supports you to learn from what has gone well. From this, good examples can be shared and learning can be fed into the organisation about what supports good practice. The tool supports both individual and organisational improvement.
In Cumberland, good examples of occupational therapy practice and learning identified from using the appreciative enquiry tool can be fed into the organisation through ‘serious success reviews’. This is a process used to celebrate and promote good practice. It is a vehicle we can use to move from ‘what went wrong?’ to ‘what went right?’: a celebration to inspire, motivate and encourage cultural change. By completing these we hope to:
- celebrate the wins
- promote staff wellbeing
- promote a culture of continuous learning and development
- improve outcomes for the people we work with
- help to achieve and promote best practice.
This series of questions supports you to consider a recent experience that you found challenging and reflect on your learning from this.
Peer reflection and group supervision
Discussing a situation or piece of learning with a colleague can support effective reflection. Peer reflection can be an informal conversation. It can also be a planned activity, for example during supervision or a team meeting.
Group reflection and effective group supervision are two short, practical tools that have been written for practitioners in adult social care to support group supervision and peer reflection.
Reflecting on self-directed learning
Many Research in Practice resources include reflective questions. You can use these questions to consider the issues raised in the resource in more depth, reflect on your own experiences, and apply the learning to your practice. You could also use the answers to these questions as part of your CPD profile for HCPC. For example:
In Cumberland, occupational therapists use a template with these questions to reflect on their learning:
- What have you learnt?
- How are you going to apply it to your practice?
- How does this improve the quality of your practice?
- How does it seek to ensure that it benefits the people who use social care services?
- What further actions or learning needs are required?
Royal College of Occupational Therapists – Professional Standards
These resources have been mapped to the Royal College of Occupational Therapists – Professional Standards to support professional development and to evidence learning.