Steps to complete your PDP
1. Identify your Professional Development Goals
Start by considering your scope of practice and any topics or techniques relevant to your practice that you would like to learn more about or improve your skills in.
Your PDP is yours alone and is unique to you, so be honest with yourself. Don’t underestimate your skills and knowledge but also don’t overlook the need to improve and enhance your ability.
Focus on general themes (the big picture) for your professional development.
You can express your CPD goals as statements like ‘I want to improve my knowledge about…’ or ‘I’d like to compare my skill in X with my colleagues’ etc.
These will be your individual overarching goals for the CPD year.
Change or remove any of your goals throughout the year if your learning needs, or scope of practice changes. It is expected that a new topic may pique your interest during the year and become an important learning goal. Make sure you capture this and add to next year's PDP if needed.
2. Develop activities supporting your goals
List any activities you have identified to support your goals. You don't need to list individual courses or activities, this is a brainstorming section to come up with ideas for what you could do to achieve this goal.
Note: this is not a mandatory section to complete as are your goals and reflection, rather a notes tool for jotting down ideas to complete your PDP.
3. Update your PDP as required
Change or remove any goals throughout the year if your learning needs or scope of practice changes. Your PDP is a fluid document!
4. Review, reflect and self-evaluate your PDP
As you complete each activity, consider whether you have achieved your goals for the year. Write a reflection for each goal, you may like to include information such as:
- whether you are still working on your goal (or did you meet your goal?)
- key learnings you took away from your activities
- how your work might be influenced or improved by your learning
- areas for further exploration
- what you might do next year if continuing with the same learning goal (copy and paste into next year’s PDP!).
Capture the time you have spent on your PDP under the ‘Reviewing Performance’ category (SkinPro CPD will automatically allocate time to your record, but you are welcome to add further time to this if needed).