The CPD learning plan, explained

A CPD learning plan is a short written plan for a year of professional development. It begins with an honest assessment of your own skills and knowledge, names the areas you want to develop, and sets learning objectives for the year. The CPD activities you then do, and the reflection you write on each one, are read against it. The Board requires a learning plan of every psychologist with general registration. It does not require one of a provisional psychologist. This page sets out what the requirement is, why the habit is worth starting during the internship, how to write a plan well, and how PsychLog's learning journal supports it.

What the Board requires of a registered psychologist

The Board's Continuing professional development registration standardsays who it covers: “This standard applies to all registered psychologists except those with provisional or non-practising registration.” For those it covers, the first requirement is the plan. In the standard's words, “You need to develop a learning plan that: is based on a skills and knowledge self-assessment, identifies areas for development or improvement, sets learning objectives, and enhances life-long learning.”

The standard then sets the hours. You must complete “a minimum of 30 hours of CPD activities annually during the period 1 December until 30 November”, and “At least 10 of these hours must be peer consultation.” You must also keep a CPD portfolio for five years, and it must include your learning plan, an activity log, “written reflection for each activity, including how it relates to your professional development goals”, and the receipts or certificates that verify participation. The plan and the reflections are read together: each reflection records what an activity gave you and how that relates to the goals in the plan.

Why it matters during the 5+1 internship

The CPD standard does not bind you while you hold provisional registration. The Guidelines for the 5+1 internshiphave their own requirement for education and training. You must complete at least 60 hours, approved by your supervisor, and record them in Section B of the logbook with a portfolio of evidence. The guidelines add that provisional psychologists “should also provide evidence of reflection of how the activities will be integrated into their practice to improve overall effectiveness”. That is the same habit the CPD standard requires of a registered psychologist, which is a written reflection on each activity and how it relates to your goals.

The standard also says that when you apply for general registration “You will be required to commit to completing the requirements for CPD during your period of general registration.” The requirement applies from the month you are registered, at 2.5 hours of CPD for every full month of general registration in your first part-year, and the learning plan is expected from the start. Our advice is to start the habit during the internship, when the education hours are already being recorded and your supervisor is already helping you name what you need to learn.

How to write one well

• Begin with the self-assessment. Take the Board's professional competencies and write a sentence against each about where you are now. Your supervisor's ratings at the progress review are a good check on your own view.
• Choose a few areas. Two or three areas for development in a year is enough. A plan that names everything you could improve is hard to act on and to review.
• Write objectives you can tell you have met. An objective such as “complete a structured risk-assessment course and use the approach with five clients under supervision” can be checked at the end of the year, and “be better at risk assessment” cannot.
• Write the reflection when you log the activity. The reflection the Board asks for is a few sentences on what you took from the activity and how it relates to your goals. It is easiest to write on the day, with the certificate attached at the same time.
• Review the plan. Read it at each progress review and amend it. A learning plan is a working document, and an objective you have met or outgrown should be replaced.

The Australian Psychological Society publishes a CPD learning-plan template for its members, available through the APS website.

How PsychLog does it

The learning journal is one of three private journals in PsychLog, with the reflective journal and the supervision journal. It is organised by topic.

• One page per topic. A topic is a page you add to for as long as the topic matters, with notes, links, lists and screenshots from courses, readings and supervision in one place.
• Each CPD row can link to a topic. Click the journal icon on any Education/CPD row in your logbook to link it to a topic, so that a workshop, a paper and a supervision discussion about the same thing are kept together.
• A reflection and the evidence on every row. Every Education/CPD row has its own notes and evidence space. Write what you learned there and attach the certificate, receipt or screenshot while you still have it, from your phone's camera if that is easier. The Board's portfolio of evidence is kept as you log.
• Private to you. The learning journal never appears in reports, sign-off pages or anything your supervisor sees. It is included in your Excel export and can be printed.
• A learning plan for each CPD year is coming. It will hold the self-assessment, the areas for development and the objectives the standard names, with each year's activities and reflections read against it. We will say when it is ready.

The journals are included with every PsychLog subscription, and free-trial accounts can use them too. Start your free trial — 14 days free, no credit card.

Common questions

The Board's documents

The quotations above are from the Board's Continuing professional development registration standard and its Guidelines for the 5+1 internship. Our plain-English guide to the logbook requirements covers what Section B must record. Those documents are the authority; if anything here and the Board disagree, the Board is right and we would like to know.