CPD

What is CPD

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) can mean many things to different people. CPD can be described as any activity that helps you do your job better – this might be a formal training course or shadowing a colleague at work.

CPD can be defined as systematically maintaining and improving knowledge, skills and competence throughout a person`s working life.

At the heart of CPD is the process of learning which can be done in formal, non-formal and informal ways.

  • Formal learning – Structured courses completed through a training establishment such as a college or university.

  • Non-formal learning – This can be gained from programmes run by in house training programmes or short courses from training companies.

  • Informal learning – This is gained in an unstructured way through your own work or outside work.

    • Planned and structured CPD can be vital particularly as the world of work has moved away from jobs for life and people change their jobs more regularly. It enables workers to demonstrate their competence and transferable skills to prospective employers. CPD can have a number of different focuses. It can help you better understand a specialist subject, broaden knowledge in a related field or help you to change career direction completely.

    Recording your CPD

    There are many ways to record your CPD. There are online web based solutions but these can be costly to you or your organisation. Alternatively you can keep a written record or personal development record (PDR).

    Recording CPD is not just about `clocking up` hours of training and development – it is also important to assess what has been learned during CPD activity. The attached document is a template of what a personal development record might contain.

    Substance misuse CPD portfolio.doc [81.50KB]

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