Guide to CPD – CPD Portfolios
What is a CPD Portfolio?
To put it simply, a CPD portfolio is a tool that can aid health practitioners manage their CPD. It is used as evidence of health practitioners maintaining and upholding their requirements to CPD during the audit period and is reviewed annually.
In most cases, CPD portfolios keep track of CPD activities that have been performed and evaluated by health practitioners. Different professions and boards have different CPD requirements, so portfolios are representative and specific to the individual practitioner.
What Do I Put in a CPD Portfolio?
A CPD portfolio should contain the following:
- Written learning plan to target learning needs
- CPD activities conducted and documented by the practitioner
- Written reflections of the activities relating back to learning needs
- Compiled in a coherent manner to present for audits
CPD activities should be directly related to the context of practice based on the health practitioner's specific profession.
Why Do I Need a CPD Portfolio?
CPD portfolios are the easiest way to maintain evidence of professional development activities, as they are stored in one location. Even though you can keep evidence of completed CPD activities anywhere and everywhere, when it comes to come reporting time it may cause you unnecessary stress to be unsure where all your documentation is.
How Do I Make a CPD Portfolio?
More often than not, if you’ve been tracking your CPD progress you’ve been keeping a CPD portfolio of some sort. Nowadays there are technologies that can help you in managing your portfolio in simple and efficient ways.
Some tools even incorporate the entire CPD process within their technology for a more robust representation of your CPD progress, as opposed to just documenting activities you completed and when they were completed.