3 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR CPD OPPORTUNITIES…

Do you feel a little lost around November and you realise you haven’t completed enough CPD hours for your AHPRA CPD requirements? Don’t stress – read this article instead!

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OTs need to complete a total of 20 hours of CPD each year to meet the requirements for their AHPRA registration. CPD shouldn’t be something that you do because you have to though; if you have some strategies for finding good quality CPD, it will be something you WANT to do, rather than just another chore.

Here’s 3 ways that you can improve the quality and quantity of CPD opportunities in your work life…

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1. Host student clinical placements

If your career goals are to eventually move into a management position, then being supervisor to a student can be a great first step for this. You will need to develop skills in assessing competence, providing constructive feedback, and possibly even managing difficult conversations when hosting a student, all of which would be directly transferrable to supervising or managing OT staff.

The benefits of hosting student placements are that it can assist supervisors to develop their skills in teaching and how to clearly articulate your own clinical reasoning, as students are great at asking questions about why you are doing things the way you are. Practicing this skill can in return help you to improve your own clinical practice, because you can then get better at explaining your reasoning to the client themselves, or to other members of a multidisciplinary team, or to a funding body like the NDIS.

Students can also increase your CPD opportunities by preparing and presenting an inservice to yourself or your team. You could make it a little side project that they need to research the latest evidence regarding a particular assessment tool or treatment, then present the information to your team with references to the evidence sources they used.

Do check out the AHPRA CPD FAQs document though as not every minute a student spends with you can be counted! You’ll need to choose particular events that contributed to YOUR skill development and complete a reflection that is linked to your CPD goals for it to count. Find out more info here: Occupational Therapy Board of Australia - Registration standard: Continuing professional development

Also, if clinical placements seem like too much hard work or an impossibility for now, then check out the resources and coaching services available through Your OT Tutor: https://yott.au/clinical_education_resources

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2. Join groups and follow social media gurus

The next strategy is to use social media to either identify or participate in CPD activities. Now this doesn’t mean that if you scroll through a particular OT Facebook group for 30 minutes every day that you can just log that time, but there may be some activities that do count.

Firstly, social media can be helpful for finding great courses. You can find out about courses by following OTs and OT companies on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and even Tic Tok. For example, as part of my social media posts for Your OT Tutor, I usually post at least 3 times per week, and many of these posts are where I share not only my own courses, but also courses offered by other OTs, or other organisations on topics relevant to OTs (NB not claiming to be a social media guru, but probably still worth following if you want to find out about CPD opportunities ??).

You can also access CPD opportunities by finding out about networking groups via social media. All you need to do is search for “Occupational Therapy” and a keyword of interest on Facebook, and you’ll be presented with both national and international options, as well as OT specific and multidisciplinary options. You can also usually find external supervisors in groups like this, so you can access regular supervision to count towards your CPD hours, even if it isn’t available in your workplace.

My top pick for a great Facebook group for OTs that has the sole purpose of helping OTs to find out about awesome CPD opportunities, is “OTs Who Love Learning” – you can find it by clicking here.

If you’ve got a great Facebook group that you’re a part of, then please share the details in the comments!

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3. Join a Journal Club

And the final strategy is to either start or join a journal club. Now this could be a little controversial, as I find that OTs either hate or love the idea of a journal club, and there’s not many in between. Often there are many barriers to implementing journal clubs in the first place, or in ensuring they can be sustainable. It could be there isn’t enough time to do the prep work beforehand of actually reading an article, or there may not be anyone with research knowledge or skills in your workplace to be able to even attempt using a critical appraisal form. Or it could be that you’re a sole OT and a journal club for one person makes no sense at all!

Having said this, journal clubs can be a really helpful way of finding out about research evidence, and in promoting discussion about whether our current practices are grounded in evidence-based practice, so they aren’t something we should chuck in the ‘too hard’ basket too quickly. They are also the perfect way to gain CPD points through collaborative learning.

If you’re interested in trying out a new journal club, then check out YOTT JC – the Your OT Tutor Journal Club. I have shaken up the traditional journal club format where there is less focus on critiquing the article (but it’s still in there a little for all my fellow #OTnerds!) and more focus on discussing how we can actually apply the evidence to our day-to-day clinical practice.

The sessions are online, available live or on-demand, and there’s even an online discussion board so there are always opportunities for interacting with others and sharing your thoughts. They’re also FREE for OT students, and cheap for OTs, with no expiry on access to the content, so it’s one of the best CPD deals going around ??

If your team is big enough and interested enough, I can also provide the coaching services and resources to help you run your own journal club in a sustainable and efficient way. To find out more, visit the Your OT Tutor website: https://yott.au/journalclub

On a final note, make sure you aren’t just completing CPD on autopilot and collecting the certificates – you’ll also need to complete a written reflection on what you learnt from the CPD activity, and how you will use the new knowledge or skills to improve your practice to enhance client outcomes. For more resources on recording your CPD, including a FREE template for recording your reflection in a way that meets all the APHRA requirements, visit the Your OT Tutor website by clicking here. ?

And for something a little more fancy, why not check out the all-in-one cloud-based platform for finding out about and recording your CPD via the OT Learning Network: https://www.otlearningnetwork.com.au/

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#OccupationalTherapy #ClinicalEducation #YourOTTutor #CPD #ProfessionalDevelopment