promote proffesional development

Continually improving your knowledge and practice is important in any job, and in fact, in all areas of your life, but it holds particular importance within a Health and Care setting. This is because we are service orientated, the product that is being sold/delivered, is essentially the people working within it. The standard of care that they deliver has a direct influence on the success of the company. I often tell our caregivers that they are ‘the face of Home Instead’ they are the ones out there providing the care, and our reputation, standards and overall success is heavily dependent on the care that they provide. Therefore, their Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is key to the success of the organisation. It would be foolish to believe that putting caregivers through Induction training, and then the mandatory annual training updates; in order to tick all the boxes required by CQC, would be adequate. There needs to be a change in culture, as manager I aim to promote this change within Home Instead. Due to time restraints and lack of resources I am fully aware that we could do more with the staff, including myself, with regards to CPD, I have written my own Personal Development Plan (PDP) and included the objective of implementing more CPD for all staff. We will become a ‘learning organisation’ by making it part of everyday life, then the burden of finding the time is less as it becomes integrated in the way people work and not just a task or a chore that they have to do.
It is called Continued Professional Development because it is an ongoing process; there is always room for improvement. McGill and Beaty (1995) said; “CPD is the nurturing of an attitude to life and work which promotes a responsible, creative and proactive approach”. Megginson and Whitaker (2007) more recently defined it as; “CPD is a process by which individuals take control of their own learning and development, by engaging in an on-going process of reflection and action” this view