Promote professional development

1: Understand principles of professional development

All companies need to develop a learning culture with work based learning at the heart of it. Continual professional development is a process of life-long learning that meets the needs of clients and enables care workers to expand and fulfil their potential. It is important to continually improve my knowledge and practice in order to remain aware and keep updated in current guidelines, legislations and standards related to my sector. In my role and responsibility to ensure all staff are kept up to date with legislation, standards and guideline changes. The GSCC code of practice state that Social care employers must provide training and development opportunities to enable social care workers to strengthen and develop their skills and knowledge.

The white paper – Modernising Social services promoting independence, improving protection, raising standards Identified that 80% of all care staff had no formal training and that there were no national standards of practice. It stated that A competent and confident workforce is an essential component of the modernisation of the social services. More recently there has been a consultation paper called Independence, well-being and choice: Our vision for the future of social care for adults in England (2005) which set out further proposals about the future of social care. Part of the paper was focused again on the skills and status of the workforce in social care and how improvements to the training and development of the staff can lead to improvements in the social care sector as a whole. Personal development benefits the individual. the organisation they work for and the people using the services. Better knowledge leads to better practice.

There are many potential barriers to professional development, which are:

Personal Barriers :
Intellectual barriers – feeling over confident in your own abilities. Social Barriers – A lack of encouragement from senior team Emotional Barriers – Low self esteem

Time Pressure:
Family
Child care
Other commitments

Financial Barriers:
Lack of money

Organisational Barriers and work pressures:
Lack of training opportunities in organisation
Staff Shortages
Lack of Cover during absence

These barriers should be discussed during supervision and appraisal. This is also the time to give guidance, support and encouragement leading to a more productive workforce which feels valued. During supervision and appraisal you should discuss your professional development. Training and development needs should then be identified and followed through.

There are several sources and systems of support for professional development. These can be accessed through my company or staff can access them independently if they wish. They are as follows:

Books
Information leaflets
The internet
Appraisals
Supervisions
Staff meetings
E Learning
Training DVD’s
Demonstrations
In house Training
Support and guidance from senior colleagues
College courses
Apprenticeships
Relevant Organisations

It is important to recognise the most important relevant sources of information for my professional development and others development also. I also need to be aware of what opportunities are available to me and what my strengths and weaknesses are; this will assist me to access the correct training and development opportunities. I can also use this technique to assist other staff to progress. By entering into discussion with your manager and asking for their advice, I will gain knowledge and feedback on my current practice. By goal sharing with my colleagues I can establish where we all see our future roles and responsibilities being. When working in partnership with other organisations, sharing training opportunities, not only develops and bands the partnership but also allows me to access extra, relevant training, which might not be available through my own organisation.

it is necessary to ensure that any opportunities and activities are relevant for keeping my knowledge and practice is up to date. I need to consider and assess how relevant sources of support are and also the systems of support available, in relation to my personal, professional and organisational goals. There are subtle differences between personal and professional development. Personal development is about developing personal qualities and skills needed to live and work with others. Professional development concerns career progression and developing skills which are needed for my profession such as communication, team work and leading. The principles of professional development are based on motivation and reaching goals and on maintaining high standards and effective care for the service users. Best practice can be promoted through training , personal and professional development, reflective practice, supervision and support.

2: Be able to prioritise goals and targets for own professional development.

The expected standards and benchmarks include:

The essential standards for quality and safety which states you can expect to be cared for by qualified staff:

Your health and welfare needs are met by staff who are properly qualified. You will be looked after by staff who are well manage and have the chance to develop and improve their skills.

National Occupational Standards are best practice practice by bringing together skills, knowledge and values. National Occupational Standards are valuable tools to be used as benchmarks for qualifications as well as for defending roles at work, staff recruitment, supervision and appraisals.

Codes of practice for social care workers social care workers must:

Be accountable for quality of their work and take responsibility for maintaining and improving their knowledge and skills.

Care Standards Act 2000 – Created a new regulatory frame work for all regulated social care and independent health care services. The Act has two main aims which are:

To protect vulnerable people from abuse and neglect
To promote the highest standards of quality in the care that people received.

By following my workplace standards I am ensuring best practice, which is used to maintain quality and can be used as a benchmark. When working in social care, to be effective and provide the best possible service for those I support, I need to be able to think about and evaluate what I do and the way I work and to identify my strengths and weaknesses. It is important that I learn to think about my own practice in a constructive way. Reflection and evaluation should not undermine your confidence in my own work. I should use them in a constructive way to identify areas for improvement.

The most effective people are those who understand themselves, both their strengths and weaknesses, so they can develop strategies to meet the demands of their companies. An individual’s talents and personal skills are fundamental and integral part of who they are.

It is important to evaluate my knowledge and practice and assess my own performance against my work place standards and this can be done by undertaking a personal skill inventory.

A personal skills inventory is a systematic approach to evaluating strengths and areas where improvements may be required. By producing a written evaluation detailing training attended and any qualifications gained, my role and responsibilities, personal experiences ect.

Self – assessment is the ability to practically and objectively identify personal management strengths and weaknesses. By carrying out a personal skills analysis I will be more aware of these areas. This will enable me to assess and identify personal goals and target areas of improvement. Once I have identified the gaps in my knowledge or skills I will need to prioritise them in order of priority.

My company has mandatory training, to meet the workplace expected standards. This will always be a priority with regards to development goals and targets.

Training, supervision and appraisals were made a legal requirement by the care standards in attempt to address problems with recruitment and retention. The General Social Care Council was formed in order to regulate the training of social workers and set conduct and practice standards for all social service staff. Support and supervision sessions are regular one to one meetings where work performances is discussed in a systematic manner. Support and supervision is concerned with monitoring work in hand, reviewing progress against individual work plans, discussing problems, developing solutions and delegating new tasks and projects. Effective support and supervision should maximise learning on the job and support the individual in a way which is appropriate to their stage of development. The wider process of reviewing overall performance and managing personal and career development are best considered as part of a systematic staff appraisal system although this is a parallel and complimentary process.

By having regular supervisions and appraisals at work, your manager will be able to assist and guide me in identifying areas of my practice which may need enhancing and where gaps in my knowledge exist and I will also be able to discuss my personal goals, career progression and my personal aspirations.

3: Be able to prepare a professional development plan.

3.1: Select learning opportunities to meet development objectives and reflect personal learning styles.

First I need to prioritise my goals, targets and objectives, for your professional development. Once I have identified these, I will then need to look at the type of training/learning opportunity which is appropriate and relevant to my role, which will enable me to meet these goals and targets. Next I need to formulate a plan of how this will be achieved. This would be my personal development plan.

First I would look at the training I have identified and decide which parts of my plan necessitate formal learning and which parts of my plan necessitate informal learning. I will need to take into consideration many factors when deciding and selecting the appropriate type of learning opportunity which best suits me, as it will need to fit both my life style and also my learning style.

Formal learning opportunities could take place in colleges or within workplace could be accredited and non-accredited courses, such as diploma’s, NVQ’s ect and workplace formal training. If it is an accredited course, you may prefer to attend college on a weekly basis or distance learning courses are available. Informal learning opportunities could include being mentored or coached, and shadowing. Once I have decided on the type of learning which will meet my objectives. It is also important to take into consideration my learning style and the method of learning which works best for me.

3.2: Produce a plan for own professional development, using an appropriate source of support. 3.3: Establish a process to evaluate the effectiveness
of plan.

When carrying out a personal plan of my current skills, knowledge and abilities or feedback I have received from others, I need to ask myself the following questions:

How can I improve or strengthen my work performance?
What are they key areas I want or need to develop to remain proficient in my profession? What are the new skills and knowledge I will need in the future?

After I have determined the key learning areas which I want or need to focus on, I then need to set goals which I can pursue.

Professional development Action Plan

As I develop my action plan, I will use the SMART model by ensuring all of my goals and action steps are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and within a specific Time Frame. Complete a plan of my goals.

Goal: To ensure I continue to improve my communication skills.

How will this goal help me: It will help me in my work and in everyday life to ensure that I communicate with people effectively? This will also ensure that I understand people better. Also by having better communication I will be able to ensure I meet the needs and requirements of people better.

What are the steps or strategies I will take?

What is the realistic time frame to accomplish the step or strategy? How will I evaluate each step or strategy?
How will I know the step or strategy has been accomplished?
Take a workshop
Complete the work shop within 1 year.
After the work shop test my knowledge and skills.

Once the workshop has been completed.
Read up on communication and skills
By February 2014
After reading the books, I will test my knowledge.

The two books will have been informative, helpful and educating. Try to use my skills to assist me to improve my skills and knowledge. 1 year but it will be on going as there is always room for improvement.

I will evaluate my progress by meeting with my manager regularly for feedback.

By receiving the feedback from my manger and other work colleges.

4: Be able to improve performance through reflective practice

4.1 Compare models of reflective practice

Reflective practice is being self-aware, systematic, challenging and objectives. It is also about keeping track of your learning, by recording and reviewing your learning. There are different types of reflection which have some important distinctions. Below are some comparisons of the different models and theories of reflective practice.

Edgar Schon

An Influential writer on reflection, described reflection in two main ways: reflection in action and reflection on action. Reflection on action is looking back after the event whilst reflection in action is happening during the event. To complicate matters there are different interpretations of reflection on action.

Reflection in action means: “To think about what you are doing whilst you are doing it: it is typically stimulated by surprise, by something which puzzled the practitioner concerned” (Greenwood, 1993). This allows the practitioner to redesign what you are doing whilst doing it.

Reflection on action is defined as: “ The retrospective contemplation of practice undertaken in order to uncover the knowledge used in practical situations, by analysing and interpreting the information recalled” (fitsgerald, 1994) We can see here that reflection on action involves turning information into knowledge, by conducting a cognitive post mortem.

Boyd and Fales

Suggest reflection on action is: 2 the process of creating and clarifying the meanings of experiences in terms of self in relation to both self and world. The outcome of this process is changed conceptual perspectives” (Boyd and Fales, 1983) we see here that Boyd and Fales focus more on self-development. Here refection does not only add to our knowledge but challenges the concepts and theories we hold. Furthermore as a result we don’t see more, we see differently.

4.2: Explain the importance of reflective practice to improve performance.

Reflective practice is a process of revising an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning. It involves looking at what has happened and evaluating what has happened and then thinking it through. The underpinning principles are based on learning from experiences and events and acting on your evaluations of the situations in future experiences. Reflection allows me to formulate an action plan. Reflection means watching what I am doing, thinking about it, using my thoughts to decide what to do next, doing it seeing what happens, evaluating the outcome and keeping a record of what I have learnt. This is a valuable tool that I can use to examine and improve my own practice.

Reflective practice is related with learning from experience, and is viewed as an important approach for health professionals who embrace lifelong learning. Due to the every changing context of health care and frequent growth of medical knowledge, there is a high level of demand on health care professionals’ knowledge. Due to this complex and continually changing environment, health care professionals are continuously reflecting on situations in order to improve their practice.

By reviewing my initial understanding of the problem and reflecting another solution to the situation can be formulated. Engaging in reflective practice is associated with the improvement of quality of care, stimulating personal and personal and professional growth and closing the gap between theory and practice.

The main benefits of reflective practice are:

A deeper understanding of your work role.
Beneficial changes to traditional methods.
Improved professional decisions.
Aids forthcoming planning.
Improved quality of practice.

4.3: Use reflective practice and feedback from others to improve performance.

Refection may involve trying to look at things differently or it may just involve looking at conditions in a deeper more analytical was as and when they occur. Reflection can be used to make sense of a situation by looking into it and attempting to come up with new ideas about a situation. Reflection should help to develop new ways of thinking. Reflection should lead to identifying areas of improvement and to achieve this sort of deep thought requires a shift in the way that a person thinks which is not easy but can be highly useful in developing as a carer and a care manager. Reflection practice influences future performance by allowing us to learn from our past experiences and to use the knowledge gained to improve our practice. We can use reflective practice and feedback from others in a variety of ways and in various situations. Feedback from other allows us to see things from another person’s perspective.

There are some examples below of feedback and reflection that may cause us to change:

After attending a training session you are usually asked to reflect on the training and evaluate what you have learned and how you might use it to improve.

When attending a meeting with senior staff reflecting on how well learning opportunities have enhanced your practice and what other training/development needs would enhance this further.

At the end of each day, reflecting on events and looking for ways you could have done things differently.

Reflective practice and feedback should be evidence through written records. This can be done during supervisions, diaries, appraisals, with evidence of regular training attended and achievements.

In my role it is important that I encourage staff members to use reflection in their daily practice. Appraisals and supervision provide an opportunity to evaluate an individual’s performance, give constructive feedback, set goals and create a personal and professional development plan for the coming year. Reflection should be encouraged during supervision. Following appraisal, objectives should be put in place and then those objectives should be reviewed and monitored regularly. Training and development needs should be identified and followed up throughout the year.

4.4: Evaluate how practice has been improved through:

Reflection on best practice

Being a reflective professional requires me to take the time to reflect on my work, reflect on its objective and evaluate its results. I should be learning from my experiences and applying this newfound knowledge to future circumstances. This is the same message as the one I will be trying to direct to all staff while I encourage them to become reflective carers too. Best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those reached with other means, and that is used as a bench mark. Best practices are used to uphold quality. Good practice requires time to evolve and progress and it is therefore vital to evaluate performance against best practice benchmarks.

This is why it is essential that I continuously update my professional competence and undertake training to ensure I am aware of changes in legislation and standards. Best practice can be encouraged through training, personal and professional development, reflective practice, supervision and support. By reflecting on best practice, poor practice becomes easily recognisable. This enables the challenging of poor practice and allows improvements to be achieved more easily.

Evaluation of how my practice has been improved through reflection on best practice can be either formal or informal. An informal evaluation may be from a co-worker who has given me feedback on a situation which I have dealt with well. I may then reflect on the situation and consider why it was effective and how I would use the experience to benefit my future practice. A formal evaluation may come from a training session I have attended, where I have learnt a new skill which can then be used in my work. I can then reflect on where I might use this new skill and how it could improve situations.

Reflection on failures and mistakes

During my time working incidents, accidents and areas of concern will occur. By reflecting on those occurrences and asking myself why it happened, how could it have been avoided, whose fault it was, what could have taken place or reduced the risk of the occurrence, I will be improving my practice and making changes to it, to ensure the same type of incidence can be avoided in the future.