A discussion with Social Work England: CPD and renewal

[Introduction] 

This is a Research in Practice podcast supporting evidence informed practice with children and families, young people, and adults.

Hannah: Welcome to this Research in Practice podcast, my name's Hannah Scott, I'm a Research and Development Officer and I'm also a registered social worker. I'm really pleased to introduce Catherine today from Social Work England, I'll let Catherine just do a quick introduction of herself.  

Catherine: Yes, thanks, Hannah, it's really nice to join you today. I'm Catherine Witt and I am a Regional Engagement Lead, I cover the North-East of England and the West Midlands, but I do quite a lot of national work as well. So, yes, it's really nice to join you. I too am a registered social worker.  

[Social Work England: the first year] 

Hannah: Great, thank you. So, last year we did a podcast with Social Work England and your wonderful colleague Ahmina. That was really helpful as an introduction to you as Social Work England and what that meant, really, for social workers because it was such a big shift, particularly in CPD (Continuing Professional Development) but also for us having our own regulator. So, we wanted to follow on from that podcast, which is still available if anyone is interested in having a listen to the background information, but we're really interested to hear how that first year has gone in terms of your first year as a regulator, particularly that re-registration process and what the expectations are and if there's anything different as we enter this CPD year, which I know that the registration has just opened recently, hasn't it?  

So, Social Work England took over the regulation from the HCPC (Health and Care Professions Council) in December 2019 and as we mentioned, the most significant change, I think, for social workers on the more visible front was having to submit annual CPD in order to maintain the registration instead of the former method of being picked at random and most social workers I think will admit to not being necessarily prepared for that. So, that was a really huge shift for social workers. How have you found that first re-registration process as the regulator, in that first year for you?  

Catherine: Yes, there has been a big change in terms of what's expected of social workers as the new regulator. Social Work England took over from the HCPC in December 2019, so we're about eighteen months old and we seem to have almost lost a year, really, through the pandemic, but it was a big shift in expectations about what we were expecting social workers to provide in terms of their CPD. When I was regulated by the HCPC, I don't think I had any discipline at all in terms of keeping my CPD but with Social Work England, there's an expectation that every social worker records in exactly the same way. So, whether you're Isabelle Trowler or you're a director of children's services, or an NQSW (Newly Qualified Social Worker), the expectations are exactly the same. So, it was a big ask of the sector and a real shift in terms of thinking and that's what we're really after. What we want to see is about behaviour change rather than it just being a tick box, and a process thing. What we want to do is to make CPD central to the profession and about improving practice and raising standards, and by and large, social workers absolutely rose to the task.  

There was a little bit of a blip at the beginning and there were people feeling a little bit anxious, people who were, maybe, not too familiar with online recording and an understandable feeling of, 'What is it we're asking you to do? What does good look like? What is quality?' And, really, it was a journey of exploration. We were asking you in the sector to provide to us what you felt good CPD was and the key piece of information that we wanted was the impact it had on your practice. So, that is the purpose of CPD and that is absolutely what we wanted to see, and we were absolutely humbled and excited about some of the CPD that was produced and the amount of dedication that people put into it was really quite overwhelming. I think we had, on average, every social worker produced, obviously at least one piece, but the average submission was 2.6 pieces, so most social workers produced more than one piece of CPD). We saw throughout the year, definitely differences in terms of when people were submitting. All the very organised people were submitting throughout the year, of course as you'd expect there was a big rush in November where people had left it to the last minute, had a rush on and submitted it because it is a requirement for your renewal and part of the requirements of being a registered social worker.  

There were a few, as I say, we'd be lying if we didn't say there were a few bumps in the road. We had a few issues with our IT and it took us a little bit of time to get some good examples on our website but as I said before, the social workers were amazing and I think, when I looked this morning just to check on the figures from last year, 95% of all social workers submitted their CPD on time and were able to renew their registration successfully. Those 5% that didn't, there was a bit of a mixture, really. We expected that some people wouldn't renew their registration, and those are people who have retired or genuinely just didn't want to stay on the register, and also we had some people who technically didn't press a button, which is a submit button, so there were quite a few people that came off the register but we very quickly put them on the temporary register because it was a process issue. So, that 5% was probably a bit high in terms of people who really chose not to renew and, of course, we saw the highest percentage of not renewing in the 60+ age group so that would tie into people who were retiring from the profession.  

[Reflecting on the value of CPD] 

Hannah: Great, thank you, that's really good to hear and yes, it's quite a high number, then, that have managed to go through that process and really interesting to hear that even though the advice has been about the minimum of one piece, although I know you recommend trying to upload CPD four times a year, so every three months on average, it's really nice to hear that social workers have been doing that as well.

So, what feedback did you get from social workers, then, about that new process? As we spoke about, it has been a really big change and I know there was quite a lot of conversation last year about the impact of the pandemic on social work. I know we spoke in the podcast last year about that it was really nice to be recognised as a key worker, as social workers. Obviously, there's been huge strains on the sector and I know there was some conversations about ‘Will we have time as social workers to do CPD?’ Whereas, everyone will have been doing CPD  as part of their adaptation to COVID and working from home, won't they? So, hopefully, that first year will have supported that. What sort of feedback have you had, then, from social workers now they've gone through that first year of the process?  

Catherine: Really interesting feedback. We conducted some external research, so we commissioned an external body to talk to social workers individually, also circulated questionnaires and we had focus groups. So, we got some really great feedback from them. We also undertook an internal review, so there are 28 social workers employed in Social Work England, so we asked all of those social workers to look at some anonymised pieces of CPD and to come at it from a professional point of view to look at the quality and the content of the CPD. So, we undertook that piece of work, and the third piece of work was we asked the validators to provide an assessment of what they had found. So, I'll deal with the validators first. As you may know, every year, we select 2.5% of all CPD that social workers have submitted and that is looked at by a group of ten validators. We're going to change that process next year, or this year actually, to call it a review process rather than a validation process. So, they looked at that and they assessed whether the CPD met the standard, and that standard was measured against its relevance to your role and its impact on your practice.  

So, those were the two criteria that the validators looked at and, offhand, I think there was only about 260 pieces of evidence that failed to meet those standards. So, the vast majority of the submissions met the criteria of it being relevant and it having impact on practice. They then looked at some examples that they felt were good and representative and those examples are now on our website. So, there's six examples that have come from that review process. I've got the figures here. 95% of social workers assessed were given an accepted outcome, so that meant it met our standards, and 4% of social workers assessed were given advice, and those social workers will be included in the validation review process this year. In their assessment of that, they made a few little comments and we've sort of got them here. One of the validators said, 'My admiration for social workers had only grown during this process.' Another was, 'It wasn't tokenistic at all, social workers were very much reflecting on what was going on around them and their service users.' And a third comment was, 'Social workers are very in touch with the real world. COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter formed part of the reflections.' So, that was really lovely to hear and I have to say that was mirrored in the internal research which the social workers in Social Work England conducted. We looked at 400 samples of CPD and we found, generally, there was almost too much written. Social workers were submitting huge amounts of detail of CPD and really, in many times, less is more. So, to really drill down and get to the point of impact of practice, that is the crucial point, so don't feel that we are seeking lots and lots of detail and narrative. There was a lot of description and not as much reflection, perhaps, as we would have liked to have seen. So, when you're doing your CPD this year, think about that, the key elements of what we're looking at is impact on practice because that's what we will be able to share with the sector.  

We'll be able to support the profession if we know what actually makes a difference and share that, as I say, right across the whole of the social work profession. We also found that attachments didn't necessarily add much value. A lot of people just added their attendance, or a certificate of attendance, or a PowerPoint presentation, and to be quite honest, we didn't really look at those because they didn't add value to the impact on your practice and that reflective understanding. Don't spend time on adding attachments if it doesn't add value to what you've written. There's obviously Research in Practice and I know there's a section which takes you through CPD and that you can add that as an attachment, that's a different matter because that then is actually going into the detail of impact on practice and relevance. So, those attachments are useful but not just an attendance certificate, not that helpful.  

Hannah: Yes, I think that's really important to say, thank you, because I know that's something that was really talked about a lot last year as well and obviously we've got the My CPD function on our website, which is great.  

Catherine: Yes.  

Hannah: And you can pull all those resources over and keep that log of what you've used, and it does give you the option to put the comments and the reflection that it's in and we're really trying to promote that workers need to do that because it's great. You can produce this list of all the training and resources that you've used through research and practice, but again it's got to be about what did you do? And, actually, I've just been updating my own CPD and I still do some independent social work and I supported in some training that was developed by one of my colleagues, I was just in a virtual room support, and actually it was so helpful for me as a social worker and with an independent assessment that I by chance happened to pick up which was working with a Muslim family and this session was all about working with Muslim children and how to understand their cultural needs but also looking at differences. It meant that when I was able to step into that visit, you know, again the virtual visit, and with the first few times we spoke, when the person I was assessing was talking about these cultural matters, I felt in such a nicer position to be able to understand what she was talking about and ask the right questions to work out what those unique cultural aspects meant for them as a family because we all do family differently, even if we are from those same sort of broader, cultural labels. That was such a helpful experience for me and when I was writing that up I thought this was a really good opportunity, I need to make sure I've got this in my CPD because that was training, which I know isn't just the only way that you can record your CPD, but both the process of that training, those reflections, and then thinking about how I could take that into practice, I would really like to think made a much better outcome for the family that I was working with, including a better outcome for the local authority that I do those assessments for because I was being more informed and looking at some areas of practice as well that I maybe wouldn't have been aware of and the questions to ask as well. So, that's what I've actually been doing today, making sure that I put in that reflection of what difference would that training have made to the family in the conversations I was having? Not just, 'Here, you go, I've pulled it over to say I was at this event.'  

Catherine: That's a beautiful example, absolutely perfect and describes exactly the purpose of CPD  and it being something that is about improving you as a professional and improving standards and raising confidence in the profession with the public. So, yes, and not a tick box process because what would be the point? Why would you be interested in that? And just while you spoke, there was a real feeling of, we need to celebrate that. You know, we're really good at it as practitioners, the profession is good at developing and reflecting, and always analysing and questioning ourselves on what we can do better. So, we absolutely have to embrace that, celebrate it and use it, and share it, and share it across those practitioners that maybe aren't in such a situation where they have the same opportunities. So, absolutely, it was a really great example.  

Hannah: I think it's a really good point, and again I know it was something we spoke about last year of, CPD's important role to be able to maintain our reputation as social workers and to give us the credit of what a skilled role and job it is, and I know that we spoke a little bit, I think, about the idea that just because you are a more experienced worker, it doesn't necessarily equate to having a really up to date, good knowledge base of theories and research, and that actually some workers that may be fresher out of university and have had a bit more time in those up to date lectures may actually be more up to date with the research. I think an example of that is the new, recent research into the toxic trio, which when I was a student social worker was really talked about and was even referred to in assessments.  

Catherine: And me.  

Hannah: Quite a common thing, and when I then realised that this research is not only not used anymore but is really quite heavily critiqued, and the reasons for that, and I know there's some excellent research on that and really good reasons and rationale about why, but without understanding that, it made me think if I'd used that in a court report how that could have undermined my practice and my professionalism, and also how that would feel to a family that we're working with. And, we would expect that of any other profession that we work with, so I think you're right. It's a really good opportunity for social workers to show that we have pride in the profession, isn't it?  

Catherine: Absolutely, and yes, and we should enjoy doing it and feel privileged to be in that professional role, to be able to demonstrate that. Notwithstanding, and I can hear people see the role in their own eyes. We get a lot of feedback about having time to do CPD, so I'm absolutely not saying everybody's sitting with lots of time and opportunities and space to do this. Caseloads are through the roof. Care proceedings are the highest they've ever been, we know that working in the pandemic has put so much pressure on people and having that support from your colleagues and from your line manager is more challenging to access. So, CPD on top of that, you know, could have been the straw that broke the camel's back, but we felt so strongly in social working that it was so central to the profession, we had to hang onto that, and thank goodness we did. We now have got one of the best observatories of practice of social work that has ever existed.  

You know, it's an absolute treasure trove in there and we know next year it will be even better, so we're building on that, and we're exploring that and interrogating it and using it to lever changes at a government level, in terms of employers' responsibilities to provide opportunities for CPD, to ensure that people have got time to do CPD and that the quality of the CPD is adequate. There is a high expectation from social workers to get good quality opportunities. So, we can do that with the Local Government Association who write the standards for employers for social workers but if we haven't got the evidence and we haven't got that feedback, we wouldn't be able to have the same legitimacy in the argument about provision and equity.  

[The variety of CPD opportunities] 

One of the things that we did find through the internal review and through the YouGov research was that people really believed that CPD equalled training and we want to move away from that as much as we can. Whilst training is good and you go on a course and you can get your certificate, that's great, but we're trying to open our thinking in terms of what constitutes CPD. So, all the examples that we put on the website are not training. So, we've put a podcast, we've put a TedTalk. There's one that's about facilitating a training course for social workers. So, we want to be as creative and allow you to be as creative as possible and to see that a conversation with a peer about a case is about as good as going on a day's course on neglect, or reading an article is equally as good as having tapped through a PowerPoint presentation. So, the more creative you can be, the better, and we're looking at how we can facilitate that and support you with that. So, it might be in the future that you can attach pictures or recordings and we can actually expand the portfolio and we're going to, again, try and see if we can develop an app as well. That is a little bit down the line but it is something that is in our sights and we need to hear from you as much as anything about what would support you in terms of being able to evidence your CPD, but the more creative you can be the better. We're not interested in the certificate, that isn't the bit that we're interested in, we're interested in how it impacts on your practice.  

Hannah: That's really interesting to hear as well and I think, yes, the opportunities in the future as well about how to make that as accessible for workers is a really exciting prospect. I know everyone will have their own personal style. Again, when I was updating my CPD earlier, I was thinking, 'What else do I need to capture?' Because again, it's not just about those training opportunities and when I reflect back on the years that I've been in practice and think, 'What were those moments that were really key in really developing me as a practitioner and making me more sensitive, more aware?' Most of those moments that jump out in my mind aren't training. They were those visits where you have either one of those lovely breakthrough moments and think, 'What was it that I did differently in that situation that's got this family to the point that we're at?' And those lovely feelings and the warm glow that you get, but also that complete opposite feeling of having a family that you're supporting that you're really struggling with, and you've got a lot of anxiety or you know that your own personal responses to maybe a particularly challenging visit that you've done or confrontation may not have actually contributed well to the situation.  

I always talk about the car in relation to CPD. I used to do so much reflecting in the car, I would get back in the car after a visit and often make notes before I left. I'd be thinking about things as I was driving back and just really mulling over those emotions and what those emotions meant to me as a practitioner, and if I was leaving particularly anxious, that would signify something to me about what I needed to go and do. I would often think, 'Okay, how did I do in that? And, maybe, what should I do differently?' And it's not the sort of thing that you're sitting down writing notes about or recognising as CPD but those opportunities are so important to make sure that you've got something to capture. So, I know one of the things I've spoken about before is I have a note in my phone where if I wake up in the middle of the night and I've thought about something or I'm doing something else and I have that lightbulb moment, I can make a note of it so when I do come to sit down, I've not missed those opportunities and I think that that will hopefully be a really positive step for this sort of shift for social workers, or recognise that.  

And, I know you also mentioned about the pandemic which we always keep coming round to because it has been so influential, but one of the things again we spoke about last year was that no social worker won't have developed through that process. We have new policies to follow with PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and with virtual visits in a way that we would never have done before and we all had to adapt to that no matter what role we were in, but also we will have supported each other as social workers. I know that is part of the CPD standards, isn't it? And about how you contribute to the learning and development of other people. No social worker that I've ever worked with, I could say I've never seen them support me or somebody else, and capturing those moments, again particularly when people are in the office, of just having a coffee and saying, 'Let's just have a talk through, you've had a difficult visit. Let me make you a cup of tea and let's talk it through,' they can be really helpful learning opportunities but I think so many of those moments will get missed and there are so many lovely opportunities that will be really nice to hopefully come out in this new way of recording CPD.  

Catherine: Definitely, and you make some really good points. One of them that struck me was that doing something wrong can be just as good a learning experience as doing something right and I know that learning from complaints, although it's a hard process, you can actually move in a very different direction having gone through that experience, or using a tool that hasn't worked and having that conversation with somebody to say, 'What else could I use?' So, I do think we're our own worst critics, really, in terms of that, but we can use that and it doesn't necessarily have to be a positive thing. So, yes, that's something, I think, that sometimes we lose.  

I'm talking about different examples that we saw submitted, what struck me really, really profoundly, was the lack of supervision being used as examples for CPD. Very few people used that as evidence and I think that tells us something, I'm not sure quite what but I think it's a great shame because I think supervision is such an important part of the profession and I do know from my own experience that it is an opportunity to reflect on what you do and to have input from another colleague or manager, who may have a very different perspective and a different level of expertise and understanding. So, I would encourage you to think about using your supervision. I know quality can vary but if you have got a good quality supervision, that is ideal to reflect on and to use and actually, it's probably a good thing to remind you. Every time you have supervision, just think, 'Could I use this for my CPD?' And here you go, you've got an example and then you can log it. So, yes, I would like to see that being more prevalent in next year but we will have to wait and see.  

[Role of managers in supporting CPD] 

Hannah: Absolutely. I think also, there's certainly a role for social work managers in supporting that CPD as well, isn't there, particularly in supervision, that as you said, it shouldn't just all be about direction. There needs to be that space for reflection and most likely that reflection will contribute to that development, won't it? I think it's not just about facilitating that, but supporting social workers, again to recognise when they've done that. When I think back to my years in practice and the hours I would disappear into a room for supervision, usually with a really big pile of snacks and my manager would decide how well the supervision had gone, depending on how many of the snacks I'd eaten my way through. You make sense of the families and the people that you're working with and how your relationship is going with them. That's all the stuff you work through in supervision, isn't it? Again, I think as a manager, being able to help a social worker identify that they've done that and say, 'That's CPD, let's make sure you get that on your record.' Again, it could hopefully really help that shift in thinking. As well as that CPD for the managers that obviously they will have to do as well, and of how they can use the support that they give social workers as their own CPD.  

I've been looking today at our social work organisational resilience tool, which really looks at promoting resilience on an organisational level, rather than it having to be the individual responsibility of social workers. That has got lots of really excellent tools in it for social work managers about how they can look for things like the sparkly moments of practice and bring out the learning of those successes in practice, as well as supporting workers to not work too hard, not be in the office when they shouldn't be, and have that work/life balance. So that when they are there at work, they are being the best social worker that they can be. I think that's self-care, it's something that can be really easily overlooked, particularly in social work. I know it was something that we reflected on previously about if you're actually being able to take that step back and look after yourself and look after your staff, that's going to have that positive contribution. That again will hopefully support the people that work with social workers and there can be really positive learning there. Which again, going back to the pandemic, we've all had to learn those responses. We might be at home, we might have our laptops at home, but we still need those boundaries. I can certainly say that I still have had to pull myself up on some of those things as well.  

I think that aspect is really important for both social workers and managers to think about as well, isn't it?  

Catherine: Absolutely, and that is something that we are thinking about. We're just planning our Social Work Week for next year and trying to get some of the current things that we need to think about and what does the sector want and certainly that whole caring and the self-care. That has been, I think, brought into sharp attention during COVID and the pandemic and just really valuing the profession and the best way to do that. Yes, that is a really important element.  

[The social work registration process] 

Hannah: So, what do social workers need to know then about the social work registration process that has just opened? So, the deadline is the 30 November each year, isn't it? So, we've got some time still but again, we don't want social workers leaving it to the last minute. Is everything the same as last year, or is there anything that people need to do differently this year?  

 Catherine: No, it's absolutely the same as last year. You can start to renew from 1 September. So, it has opened up and we'd really encourage you to do that sooner rather than later. If you've got a piece of CPD logged and you're ready to roll, go and do it. You can continue to add CPD even though you have renewed. You can alter the piece that you've already submitted, so don't think if you've pressed that submit button, that's it, you can't go back to it. You can add to it and you can alter the one that's already submitted if you're not happy with it. So, it is a really simple process. 

I will give you a little bit of a heads up. The employment field, when you go in to do your renewal, the employment field flags up red because we're asking for social workers now to add the area of social work that they're working in. We only need one year of your employment and the redness is because you need to put in the field of social work that you're working in. Because that'll really help us and we're going to have a lot better data about the split between adults, children, NHS, independent, etc. So, same as before, you will submit your renewal and I think the payment will go out in October, if you've set up a Direct Debit. So, it just flags up saying that it's partially complete.  

Once the Direct Debit goes out, then the renewal is done completely and you will know on 1 December whether you have been renewed successfully. We can't tell you immediately because it might be that you've got a self-referral issue in there, or you're going to be selected for your CPD. So, we would have to go through that review process before we would finally get you back on the register. But we will let you know if you're part of the review process and then an email would come out to you on the 1st and if you are selected for a review, panic not because you don't have to do anything. You're just selected and once the reviewers have looked at your CPD, they will let you know whether it has been accepted, or that you will be given advice. So, it's all exactly the same as last year. What we saw and it's quite interesting, we saw a huge spike in November, well, not surprising. Most of the CPD that was submitted was submitted in November. But when we looked at that, the quality of that CPD was not as good as the quality, and that stands to reason. People who were maybe doing it a bit last minute, didn't take as much time as they could've done. So, it is about that getting into a bit of a habit of just four pieces, although you are required to only submit one. So, if you submit one that's absolutely fine, but four pieces, we're saying is a good practice. It does lead you down to a bit of a road of better quality and better thinking. It takes us away from that whole tick box process and doing it just to get your registration renewed.  

[Changes to CPD in the future]

Next year, we've got some interesting developments. We went out to consultation for the changes in our CPD process, expectations and requirements and we got really good engagement with the sector. People with very strong views about what we were proposing and just very briefly, we were proposing that we were going to expect social workers to submit two pieces of CPD rather than one piece. That there would be a peer discussion on your CPD and the third thing that we have consulted on is that we would introduce a theme. That would sit across all social work professions, so that could be something like equality, diversity and inclusion. Or, it could be safeguarding or something that everybody could sign up to. That has gone to our ELT (Executive Leadership Team) and we have agreed what the proposals will be for next year. But we're not going to announce those until December because we don't want to confuse people. So, we started to tell everybody what they were and they said, 'Is it this year, is it not,' So, I think pretty much I can tell you that it will be two pieces of CPD, but I think that will be an expectation. I think it's a really sensible proposal around peer reflection and again a sensible proposal about the theme.  

We're also streamlining the forms. So, we're not going to have an unstructured and structured form. We're going to put it into one so that you can make it into a structured form if you want. So, you tick the 4.3 [box], the box will open. So, you're not going to have that-, the two different ones. That'll be a lot better and also, you'll have a bar across the top saying how much you've completed of it. So, it'll be a bit more user friendly. We've got some changes coming around the review process because what the feedback, or the consultation said was when we got the feedback, why wait another year. If your CPD needed to have advice, that needed to come sooner rather than a year later. So, we've got a really good, I think, way forward for that. So, some really good things, that support you as practitioners, that won't add too much more in terms of already very tired and worn out and busy social workers. So, I don't think it will-, well, hopefully you will see the rational and understand why we've done that. I think it will be a really good thing.  

But for this year, it's exactly the same and just to encourage you to do it now, rather than wait until the very last minute. It does make you feel quite good, I have left mine a little bit late, but I have done it. But when I did it, I thought yes, that was fine. I'm glad I've done that now. I will do another piece, so yes, it is well worth it, just getting it done.  

[Top tips for completing CPD] 

Hannah: Yes, definitely and I think there is certainly something about that feeling of knowing it's done and that even if you get picked, you just go, 'Okay, I don't need to worry about it.' Which again, is such a positive shift I think for any of those workers who got picked within that 2.5%, under the HCPC. So, that's really helpful thank you.  

So, finally, have you got any top tips there for social workers that are starting to think about CPD and making sure that they're doing what they need to. What advice would you give them?  

Catherine: Well, first of all I would advise you to look at the examples, they're really good and I've learned from them. When you look at them, you think yes, I can absolutely do this. That's a really good thing. Another thing is to really ask yourself, what is it I need? What can I demonstrate? Don't try and be too grand about it. If you've watched a really good programme on television, or you've looked at-, there is so much going on around Afghanistan now, and asylum seekers. How we in the social work world respond to that. If you're living in Kent or if you're with refugees and migrants, there's a huge narrative going on that we interpret, I think, differently through our professional eyes. Use those examples, talking to your colleagues, I think Hannah was talking about that. How many times has somebody said, 'Well, let's just talk through this and have a cup of tea.' That's professional support and development and gold dust, isn't it? It's those moments that you think, 'Yeah, I really get this now.' As I say, don't tangle yourself up in things like the certificates and agonising, 'Did I do that training on the 5 October, or was it the sixth?' We don't care, as long as the date is in this registration year and it's relative to your practice and it has made a difference, that's what we're interested in.  

We're not going to be cross referencing, did you really go to that training? Or did you really listen to the podcast in February and it wasn't March? That really isn't the point of it. So, all those details are less important, or not important at all, compared to what we're looking for which is the real meat of it, in terms of the impact. The variation of things that you can do and how we learn as a profession, so that we can take that away and use it to build a stronger, better and more resilient profession, I think.  

Hannah: That's great, thank you so much. That's really helpful. So, thank you for your time today. So, just to remind everyone that if you've got a Research in Practice account, be that through your organisation with full membership, or even just through the open access resources, you'll be able to record your CPD on the My CPD function. Anything that you've used, and as Catherine has spoken about, anything that has been really influential and beneficial for your practice and has supported your development. We've got videos on this and we've got lots of other resources and blogs and guidance coming out as well. Make sure that you remember to pull that across into your CPD record and add those reflections. Say why it was helpful, what the benefit was and how it has contributed. Then you will be able to upload that onto the Social Work England website. We'll put all the links on our website for all of these things as well and we've obviously got lots of different resources in terms of other podcasts. We have webinars, both live and recorded. All of our resources, we've got lots of different ways that we can support your CPD.  

If you do have any questions, please get in contact with us as well. I just want to say another thank you Catherine, it has been lovely to speak to you. I really look forward to hearing how this second year has gone and what the changes will be in the next year as well.  

Catherine: Thanks ever so much Hannah and I'm a big supporter of Research in Practice, so yes, amazing resources. I've used it all my professional life, so yes, it's great. So, yes, lovely, lovely to chat to you.  

Hannah: Great, thank you very much.  

[Outro]

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