Social Work England are changing the CPD regulations previously put in place by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). Principally, practitioners are no longer allowed to declare that they have completed their CPD without giving evidence. Instead, practitioners will have to submit more than one piece of CPD evidence showing their professional development throughout the year. They will be asked to do this via an online account where they can update their CPD progress. This online account will be automatically created if a practitioner was already registered with HCPC, or if not, can be done via the Social Work England website. The new regulator will send reminders about completing the CPD requirements, before the deadline on 1September 2020, throughout the year.
Within the online account, practitioners are offered two options for recording their CPD, structured and unstructured:
Structured:
Provides questions to help the practitioners through the process
Unstructured:
The practitioner can provide information themselves without the guide of questions.
The regulator is expecting to see what a social worker has done for their CPD, a reflection on how it impacted and improved their practice, and which of the new CPD standards they feel that the learning has met.
Practitioners must submit their CPD documentation every year. Failure to do so will risk having conditions placed on their registration or even see them removed from the register. Social Worker England is not allowing social workers to defer their CPD during the registration period of 2 December 2019 to 30 November 2020. The regulator will give practitioners who do not submit their CPD a period of 21 days to do so before assessing the outcome. If at any time a practitioner is unable to complete their CPD due to their specific circumstances they must contact Social Work England to discuss other options.
COMPASS offers free evidence for your CPD through attendance of our events throughout the year: The COMPASS Jobs Fair, Birmingham, The Social Work Show, and The COMPASS Jobs Fair, London. Our events are free for all visitors to attend and contain a comprehensive conference programme, networking opportunities, and the latest developments in the sector. Click our “Events” tab to find out more information about attending our events in 2020.
