Supporting Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
Professionals need to maintain and develop their professional skills, whilst continuing to be professionally active. This balancing act is necessary and in our view even desirable.
In our view there two very useful ways in which an individual can professionally develop, namely through practice-based research and through competence profiling. In both cases the individual can discover new skills and develop existing ones in a targeted and practice-related way.
By introducing a continuous professional development –cpd- portfolio we have developed a tool, which can help professionals draw up a balance of their strengths and weakness, using methods of self-assessment, critical friends and peer-assessment to identify areas of professional development and paths towards realising it.
We support individuals and organisations define their aims and criteria for individual professional effectiveness, which can help both the individual and those responsible for human resources focus on what needs to be done and what can be done.
At ipf we have developed the ipf Q competence profile through portfolio and adapted its use to the requirements of professional cpd. By drawing up a balance of competencies using the ipf Q profile, we can help the individual identify deep seated motifs in their own development, which can shed light on professional development.
ipf has experience using ipf Q as a cpd tool in many life situations, from careers planning in school leavers to mid-career developments in social and educational institutions, businesses and NGOs.