Top tips for recording CPD
A quick guide to recording your CPD to help you get the best out of your CPD and to prepare for registration renewals.
Top tips for recording CPD
7/6/2020 1:00:00 PM
Continuing professional development (CPD) is the reflection and learning activity that social workers do throughout their career to maintain and improve their practice. It is also an important part of our professional standards, and social workers must complete and record CPD on their Social Work England online account to remain on the Social Work England register.
To help you get the best out of your CPD and so that you meet our renewal requirements, here are some top tips from our regional engagement leads:
Tip 1
Start to think about renewing your registration
- Renewals takes place annually September to November. If you want to renew your registration, you must set up your online account to record CPD.
- We will check whether you have recorded CPD at the end of the renewal period. If you have not recorded any CPD, it could affect your registration.
- If you feel you cannot meet our CPD standard, you should contact us as soon as possible so that we can discuss your concerns.
Tip 2
Use your online account
- Log in to your online account through our website and select ‘Your CPD’ to record CPD.
- For security reasons, you will be logged out after 60 minutes. Avoid losing work by typing your CPD in a different document to copy and paste before you upload or by regularly saving your progress.
- Be aware of the 1,400 word limit warnings. If you go over the limit, you will not be able to save your work.
- All CPD records should be anonymised. They must not include any personal information that could identify someone.
- If you’re using a work device and your browser isn’t up-to-date or settings are not ‘enabled’, discuss this with your IT department.
- Having technical problems? Check out our website support page.
Tip 3
Make a start as soon as possible
- Start recording your CPD as soon as possible to get into the habit of using your online account.
- Tell us what you did and how it meets our CPD standard, and how it has positively changed your practice.
- Record as much CPD as you want, but only tell us about what you have done since the start of December.
- Try to demonstrate how you’ve met all eight parts of the CPD standard throughout the year – you don’t need to do this in one piece of CPD.
- Add supporting documents if you want to. If you already record your CPD somewhere else, you can upload this and explain how it meets the CPD standard.
Tip 4
You are the best person to decide what CPD you need to do
- There is no set amount or type of CPD you should do - once a quarter is good practice.
- Think about your personal circumstances and how you are practising.
- Think creatively about your learning needs. Ask yourself, what are you already doing in your role?
- CPD is not just about training courses – it is any learning that benefits your practice, including learning from feedback, listening to podcasts and reading articles.
- Most importantly, CPD should be relevant to your role.