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Continuing
Professional Development (CPD)
A professional body is
defined by the skills of its membership, and by how that expertise
develops. To ensure that we
keep our skills up to date, the IHBC currently requires its members to
undertake a minimum of fifty hours of relevent professional development
over a rolling two year period.
From 1st April 2005 we introduced the forms downloadable below for
recording and monitoring continued professional development (CPD).
Contact our Director Dr Sean O'Reilly director@ihbc.org.uk
with queries, or Lydia Porter admin@ihbc.org.uk
for extra forms.
Downloads:
CPD Form (PDF)
CPD
Form (MSWord)
Guidance
Notes (PDF)
Guidance
Notes (MSWord)
Planning your
Professional Development
From an article by Mike Brown and John Preston for
the IHBC 2005 Yearbook
A key part of any Institute’s activity is
to ensure that its members develop and update their professional
competences. It is equally important that members and their employers
recognise this need. Members are admitted on the basis that they have
adequate training in their chosen field; they are required to maintain
their professional competence throughout their working lives under the
Institute’s Code of Conduct.
The IHBC, in common with other professional bodies, recognises the
value to be gained by members, clients, our heritage and the public at
large in having a positive approach to the continuing training and
development of its members. Many members will have already qualified in
some capacity in another profession before specialising in conservation
work. This too will have often been the basis for formal study. Once in
the world of work, however, members’ training and education needs are
just as important as when they were students but can take on a much
more varied and informal form. The Institute, at national and branch
level together with many partners already delivers a wide range of
training opportunities. However, the requirement to keep abreast of new
and current developments and thinking, in a broad and diverse
profession, is never-ending and members will be engaged in this effort
on a daily basis.
To this end, IHBC has had an interim CPD (Continuing Professional
Development) requirement for each member to undertake 50 hours of CPD
over any 2-year period. However, and as other Institutes have found,
such simple recording of CPD on a time basis gives no indication of the
quality of the training, or of what the member has gained from it.
Following consultation, the Institute has now formally agreed a new CPD
regime which is being introduced for the 2005-6 financial year. The
requirement for 50 hours’ CPD to be completed in any 2-year period
continues; the major change is the introduction of a CPD return which
requires each member to plan his or her own training needs on the basis
of a Personal Development Assessment related to the Institute’s Areas
of Competence.
IHBC recognises that many of its members have to meet the CPD
requirements of other Institutes. CPD completed to meet the
requirements of another Institute will continue to be eligible for
“double-counting” for IHBC also, provided that it relates to the IHBC’s
Areas of Competence and meets needs identified in the Personal
Development Assessment.
WHAT IS
CPD?
Many IHBC
members will be familiar with Continuing Professional Development, or
CPD, through their membership of other professional bodies. It is a
method of encouraging individual reflection of what your particular,
personal professional development needs are, where you intend to find
them, what you have learnt from the experience and then feeding that
back into the personal reflection process. At its best it can deliver a
virtuous upwards spiral of increasing positive self awareness,
self-confidence and professional improvement and success. The written
record is simply evidence of this journey.
WHAT
COUNTS AS CPD?
When CPD was first introduced by other professional bodies, many
imagined that it was restricted to attending seminars, lectures and
similar formal training events. It was soon realised that this approach
did not meet many members’ needs. Yet, this narrow approach still
informs many professionals’ response to CPD. The IHBC encourages its
members to take a much more imaginative approach to addressing how to
meet their professional development requirements. The Institute
recognises that, ultimately, it will be down to the individual member,
from their assessment stage, to work out what best suits them.
Formal training may play a part in meeting your Personal Professional
Development needs and the Institute hopes that its national and branch
level events will be what you are looking for. If not, or you have a
suggested topic for an event please don’t hesitate to contact your IHBC
branch or the Education Secretary, and let them know. But other sources
of information and knowledge should be considered. Going to site and
watching a craftsman scarf in a difficult timber frame repair might
count if you are striving to improve your knowledge in that area.
Similarly, the closely argued legal point at a Public Inquiry, the
analysis of a client’s financial submission for enabling development or
the philosophical debate with your peers as to whether a proposed
extension should match or be distinctly modern are all areas which can
all count, if they take you into new professional territory or explore
ideas to a new level.
What matters is not the form but the content, and that it links back to
your Personal Development Assessment and the IHBC’s Areas of
Professional Competence. CPD can be almost anything, so use your
imagination.
What should happen as you progress over the year and years is that you
start to get a feel for what your strengths and weaknesses are and how
to go about building up your professional abilities and competencies so
that you become a consummate and self confident professional, better
able to take a leading role in the conservation world.
WHAT
HAPPENS NEXT?
You must take care to keep your CPD records and verifying evidence
safe! It is probably best to keep them in a hard copy file at home
(people change jobs and lose records kept at work - particularly on the
work computer). The IHBC will, at short notice, call in the CPD Records
of a percentage of members each year for assessment. These members will
be selected at random but the system will be attenuated to ensure, over
time, that all members will, at some point, be called in. Any member
who fails to submit their CPD Records or submits unacceptable and/or
unverified CPD records will be subject to disciplinary action by the
Institute.
However, the Institute is confident that members will understand and
recognise that CPD is primarily for the benefit of the individual
members. That is why it has given responsibility for its effective
implementation to each individual member. Hence, why it encourages a
flexible, imaginative approach. Formal and informal learning both have
a place in the IHBC’s CPD. Ultimately your CPD is a matter for your
individual judgement. All the Institute asks is that you apply it
honestly and effectively and that you meet the hours criteria.
The Institute knows the strength and diversity of its members and is
proud of the work we all do to preserve and sympathetically exploit the
heritage. It trusts you will use the opportunity CPD offers to grow and
show the world just how good you and the IHBC really are.
Mike
Brown and John Preston |