One of registrants’ biggest challenges can be finding time for CPD in an overcrowded schedule
It can feel impossible for registrants to record, let alone carry out regular CPD activies, but many find that a few simple changes make a big difference.
Here are some suggesions on how you can better support your employees:
Protect time for employees to carry out and reflect on CPD
Help them to find time and opportunities to undertake learning activities. CPD isn’t just going to courses and doing projects, it can be as simple as:
- Reflecting on patient contact at the end of the day
- Discussing and reviewing activities with other members of staff
- Running a group and discussing it with co-facilitators
- Observing how others operate in your workplace
Creating the space for your employees to reflect on their practice, by themselves, with a colleague or as part of a group, can help you to deal with high levels of pressure and share lessons learned to strengthen the important bonds within and across teams.
Embed CPD into your working culture
- Recommend learning activities
- Regularly discuss and review the learning activities they undertake
- Include in annual appraisals
- Encourage employees to regularly update their CPD record
- Facilitate and encourage group or team reflection
Encourage group or team reflection
This type of reflection allows professionals to come together and build collective wisdom through the sharing of ideas and knowledge.
Reflecting together with their colleagues and other professionals can also allow them to identify complex issues they encounter in their practice that are common across organisations or departments.
Group reflection allows professionals to share their reflections with others and for them to learn from a wider group of people. It can also give them insight into the experiences of others in the team, so they can think about how their work impacts positively or negatively on each member of the group.
Schwartz Rounds are one example of how a facilitated group can work to help teams reflect, take a look at our video for a real example from a multi-disciplinary health and care team.
