Continuing professional development (CPD) is essential for upholding professional standards and keeping registration with regulatory bodies. CPD has many benefits for practitioners and organisations such as enhanced skills and knowledge and staying up to date with research, tools and methods. This means that practitioners can use more effective interventions with people using services, leading to better outcomes.
The importance of social workers continuing to develop throughout their careers is highlighted in the National framework. The Working together guidance focuses on the impact of learning with other professionals.
Effective CPD supports your organisation to implement national guidance. In terms of career progression, providing CPD shows a commitment to practitioners’ professional growth and development, creating opportunities for promotions, leadership roles or specialisations.
Attending CPD offers practitioners opportunities to connect, exchange ideas and collaborate, leading to strong support networks. This improves peer-learning opportunities. Engaging in CPD helps practitioners pursue areas of interest within their field, building personal satisfaction and a sense of achievement.
CPD is crucial in giving practitioners skills and knowledge to adapt to changes in policies, demographics and societal trends. Improving skills leads to greater capacity to adapt. Little research has objectively measured CPD’s benefits. Similar to other ‘helping’ professions the impact is typically assessed by the quality of:
While it’s important to gain an understanding of practitioners’ views, you should recognise CPD’s cost-effectiveness and practice benefits. Evidence suggests practitioners typically see CPD’s potential benefits for practice.
Research commissioned by Social Work England (see Social Work England in References) found many advantages of CPD including:
Other research has identified that taking part in CPD builds professional growth when practitioners use learnings in their work. It will increase open and innovative learning, helping workers share effective practice. CPD will:
CPD that supports self-care and stress management skills can reduce risk of stress-related burnout and improve practitioner wellbeing. Formal opportunities to encourage professional self-care can have particular benefits for student social workers and early-career practitioners.
While few studies have been conducted with social work practitioners, there’s evidence that specific self-care strategies, like mindfulness, can improve wellbeing.
CPD designed to enhance self-awareness, cognitive behavioural skills and peer support has been found to be effective in early-career practitioners.
There’s also evidence indicating that encouragement to participate can:
Ofsted found that local authorities with higher staff retention emphasised timely, flexible, well-supported and resourced career progression. Skills for Care also highlights learning and career development opportunities as a factor in recruiting and retaining practitioners in adult social care.
Flexible learning opportunities are especially valued. This shows the importance of building relationships with training providers to create learning and development programmes that meet practitioners’ needs.
CPD influences practice by prompting reflection on personal values and belief systems and how they influence decision-making processes. CPD related to equality, equity, diversity and inclusion is particularly important for practitioners. CPD should address issues surrounding discrimination, helping them promote fairness and inclusivity.
CPD can be designed to help social workers appreciate how race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, and socio-economic background intersect with social work practice. This helps them provide culturally sensitive and responsive services, leading to more equitable outcomes for people using services.
Additionally, CPD concentrated on neurodiversity is important. It enhances understanding and support for colleagues with conditions such as:
Research in Practice provides guidance for organisations to support neurodivergent practitioners (see References). CPD opportunities are also available for practice educators, assessors and supervisors to develop their understanding of neurodiversity when supporting and assessing neurodivergent social workers.
This is the list of research and evidence sources used to produce this section. Publicly available links are included.
Allen, L. M., Palermo, C., Armstrong, E., & Hay, M. (2019). Categorising the broad impacts of continuing professional development: A scoping review. Medical Education, 53(11), 1087-1099.
Community Care. (2022). Neurodivergent social workers ‘exhausted’ from lack of understanding at work.
CIPD. (2018). Neuro-inclusion at Work
Halton, C., & Powell, F. (2013). Continuing Professional Development in Social Work. Policy Press.
Jason, M. N., & Nelson-Gardell, D. (2014). A competency-based approach to teaching professional self-care: An ethical consideration for social work educators. Journal of Social Work Education, 50(3), 427-439.
Kinman, G. (2022). Supporting Practitioner Wellbeing. Research in Practice.
Kinman, G., & Others. (2019). It’s my secret space: the benefits of mindfulness for social workers. The British Journal of Social Work, 50(3), 758-777.
Louise, G., & Gail, K. (2012). Enhancing wellbeing in social work students: Building resilience in the next generation. Social Work Education, 31(5), 605-621.
MacLean, S., & Lloyd, I. (2013). Developing Quality Practice Learning in Social Work (Second Edition). Kirwin Maclean Associates Ltd.
Maddock, A., McCusker, P., Blair, C., & Roulston, A. (2022). The mindfulness-based social work and self-care programme: A mixed methods evaluation study. The British Journal of Social Work, 52(5), 2760-2777.
Moriarty, J., & Manthorpe, J. (2014). Post-qualifying education for social workers: A continuing problem or a new opportunity? Social Work Education, 33(3), 397-411.
Muijs, A., & Lindsay, G. (2008). Where are we at? An empirical study of levels and methods of evaluating continuing professional development. British Educational Research Journal, 34(2), 195-211.
Ofsted. (2012). High expectations, high support and high challenge.
Research in Practice. (2020). Organisational Audit for Evidence-informed Practice.
Research in Practice. (2024). A Guide to Continuing Professional Development for Social Workers.
Research in Practice (2024). Supporting neurodivergent practitioners in your social care organisation.
Simpson, J., & Others. (2017). Taking advantage of dissonance: a CPD framework. Journal of Children’s Services, 12(1), 1-15.
Skills for Care. (n.d.). Promoting career development.
Turley, R., & Others. (2020). Promoting the retention, mental health and wellbeing of child and family social workers: A systematic review of workforce interventions.
YouGov. (2021). Social Work and Continuing Professional Development for Social Work England.
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