CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

We all said, it was an historical moment.

A panel of seventeen selected child and youth care workers met at the South African Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP) for a training workshop. The purpose?...the policy of the assessment of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) points for child and youth are workers n South Africa.

Training started with "Why CPD, anyway?" It was clear that some child and youth care workers would object to the requirement now needed to maintain registration as a professional. Anticipated was a set of objections based on the necessity to pay for additional annual training.

Let's start however with the need for CPD.

We were all 17 of asked "Why are you here?" My response was, "How would it be for you, if you went to a Doctor who had not read a medical journal for the last 5 years? How would our young people think if they were served by so called professionals trained 5 years ago (or more) and not kept up to date, somehow, with more of today's knowledge and skills?" As in medicine, so in Child and Youth Care practice, the field has a rapid ever-changing growth in knowledge, skills, concepts of being and of self. The world itself has not stood still. We can no longer say, "I've been doing this for the last 15 years. I know what is best". 

That is it ! As professionals we have to stay up to date, to expand what we have started to know and to, sometimes, revise it. 

Well, in the year 2020, child and youth care workers in South Africa will have to provide evidence  that they are updated in order to keep alive their registration and so, to keep their jobs. Basically, the need for CPD cannot be disputed in the best interests of the child.

Let's start then from there. These are the requirements as set out in the SACSSP policy for the award of CPD points:

In summary:
1. At professional level you are required to to obtain a minimum of 15 CPD points annually or 30 points over 2 years.
2. At auxiliary level 10 CPD point annually, or 20 over two years
3.At least one activity must address the professional code of conduct and ethics.
4. A maximum of 10 points can be forwarded to the next year for a period of one year.
5. Each CPD activity is approved by the SACSSP against set criteria and awarded on completion of the activity.

Firstly, service providers. The problem is that there is money to be made from the provision of CPD training. Everyone and anyone wants to jump at the opportunity. So service providers and their programmes have to b approved by the SACSSP and measure up to the formula for the number of points that can be awarded.

Then we have to be accountable and accounted for.

The advice is for us, now as child and youth care workers to open a file, collect and file evidence of your CPD attendance at approved CPD training, accredited workshops and approved conferences and seminars.

Points for what you do as CPD as an individual can be gathered in a more complex system of point formula. Collect evidence now of any self directed CPD you have done. 
In brief, this is a list, without detail, of the areas of self directed CPD you can undertake and submit for point consideration. The greater the significance of such, the more the point value. 
Personal wellness, self study, learning programme participation, memberships of professional associations, being an examiner, peer review, paper presentation, authorship of article, book or textbook, formal research, project or policy analysis. 

As this is a new, but nonetheless important move forward in the profession of child and youth care work in South Africa, the Professional Board for Child and Youth Care Work           ( PBCYCW) decided to ease us into the system by allowing that:
service providers who provided training/workshops of a CPD nature in 2019 will, on announcement be permitted to submit those programmes retrospectively for the allocation of points. What you have done, then in those programmes and what you have done as self directed in 2019 can be used for CPD points.

Now back to the cost. It can be controlled. Most organisations undertake an annual performance appraisal and set out a personal development profile for each staff member and ensure that there are CPD styled workshops or courses to meet the need. If these apply and receive accreditation much of the group CPD activity can be gathered in the workplace.

CPD is not punishment. It has been applied in Social Work for a very long time. Now child and youth care workers in South Africa will be on par with all other professions. CPD separates us from occupations such as child minders and nannies. Registration together with CPD put us well and truly into the category of professionals.

It marks a moment in the history of our professionalisation in South Africa
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Welcome it !!