Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is widely recognised as a fundamental way to improve the professional standards and skills of Therapists. It exists to ensure that an individual enhances their skills and abilities once they have qualified. CPD is important as it helps to ensure that further learning is progressed in a structured, practical and relevant way. CPD allows a therapist to focus on what specific skills and knowledge they require over a short-term period, maybe 12 months, in order to be confident that there is recognisable improvement in their proficiency and skill sets. As more people become professionally qualified with similar qualifications, CPD becomes more important as a means of separating yourself from the pack and being able to offer a greater level of professionalism. Thoughts, procedures and science moves on continually and we need to ensure we have the most update training and knowledge to best help our clients. A minimum of 15 hours of CPD is required by the AfSFH.
Whist knowing what you need to know is vital, doing what you need to do is more important. Giving our clients the very best professional care and attention is our aim. We must ensure we evaluate every session and challenge ourselves whether the session was the best it could be for the client. Learning points are recorded on our session logs and identified to allow us to build upon any weaknesses in the last session to ensure we give our very best next time. What could I have done differently? What should I have done differently? What did I miss? Did I give the best that I could? Am I adequately qualified for this situation? Do I need to change the approach? Did I speak too quickly? And the list goes on. Fundamentally we need to learn what was good and do more of it, identify what didn’t work and do something different. Once a client has ended their therapy sessions, the entire story of their journey should be evaluated to enable reflection and constructive criticism. This could identify weaknesses in the therapist’s ability, enabling them to plan future CPD, or it could be that it gives the therapist the joy in seeing that the sessions have helped, driving increased positivity and belief in themselves to strive to work even harder for the clients.
Evaluating our own performance is a great way to improve our skills. There may though, be more effective approaches that only come with experience. But should we wait to gain experience? Should we practice on our clients until we get proficient? The answer to these questions has to be no! Part of the code of conduct states we all have to undertake supervision from a qualified Supervisor. The AfSFH state a minimum of 6 hours. Supervision is an effective way of discussing cases, in a professional, confidential and constructive way. Individual cases can be discussed to allow the Supervisor to ascertain if the therapist is adhering to the code of conduct and to offer insight into what worked, what could have helped and what further training may be needed. No details of clients are given, to ensure privacy. Supervision is important when a new client presents issues that the therapist feels underqualified to help with. Discussions on the best course of action can be had to best serve our clients and to ensure they see we are doing our upmost to help.
To summarise, we need to do the best we can for everyone that chooses us to help them. We must constantly work towards having the most up to date knowledge, continually evaluate ourselves and be monitored by trained Therapists to ensure we give the best possible level of service to our clients.
