What is CPD accreditation?
Are you searching for training courses, learning materials, or events to help develop your or your team’s professional skills and knowledge? With such a huge selection of independent training providers and resources available, all claiming to be the best, selecting the right one can be challenging!
That’s where CPD accreditation comes in useful. Looking out for CPD-accredited courses, webinars, events, and trainers can help you to sort the wheat from the chaff.
But what is CPD accreditation?
Training providers can gain accreditation to offer quality assurance. Demonstrating that the training course has been assessed and proven to be of high quality, giving individuals peace of mind that the training will be of value and comply with industry standards.
In this article, we will explain more about what CPD accreditation is and how it benefits training providers, employers, and employees alike.
What is CPD?
CPD stands for Continuing Professional Development. According to The CPD Certification Service, ‘Continuing Professional Development is a commitment to ongoing lifelong learning.’
CPD encompasses any activities that individuals participate in to progress their professional learning by refreshing their knowledge or improving their skills. This can be achieved in all sorts of different ways, including enrolling on a training course, qualification, or online eLearning program or attending a seminar, workshop, or conference.
Continual Professional Development is a process used across organisations in a huge range of sectors, including health and social care, education, business and management, law and finance, retail, and the public sector. Employees at all levels can benefit from CPD, from trainees to supervisors and managers to CEOs.
Benefits of CPD
Providing the workforce with continual professional development opportunities has numerous benefits for both employees and employers; these include:
- Enhance skills and knowledge – Offering employees the opportunity to keep developing their skills and knowledge helps to equip your organisation with a highly skilled and productive workforce, ensuring that employees are up to date with the latest industry trends, techniques, and safety best practices.
- Comply with laws and regulations – In some industries, specific CPD activities are mandatory to ensure compliance with important rules and regulations.
- Boost credibility – Demonstrating that your organisation values professional development, growth, and excellence can help to boost your business’s credibility and reputation amongst competitors, clients, and employees. A business that invests in its staff shows commitment to maintaining high standards of service.
- Enhance employee career prospects – For employees, participating in CPD activities can prevent them from stagnating in their roles, and help them to gain the skills, knowledge, and credibility they need to win promotions and advance their careers.
- Improve workplace performance – Investment in professional development doesn’t just benefit employees, it can boost the productivity and success of the entire organisation. By enhancing your tem’s skills and knowledge, you can improve their productivity and efficiency, leading to improved service delivery to customers.
Different types of CPD
CPD can be an effective tool for enhancing employees’ workplace performance, but only when suitable and effective learning methods are used. Everyone learns differently, so there is no one size to fit all.
There are three different types of CPD, to suit the three main learning methods, these are:
- Structured CPD for active learning – Structured learning typically involves participation. Examples of structured CPD include training courses, workshops, seminars, conferences, and eLearning courses.
- Reflective CPD for passive learning – Reflective learning typically does not require any participation. Examples of reflective CPD include watching training videos and tutorials, attending lectures, and listening to podcasts.
- Informal CPD for self-directed learning – Informal CPD covers all unaccompanied and unstructured learning. Examples of informal CPD include reading industry-specific books, articles, and publications.
It is generally recommended that at least 50% of CPD is structured CPD, and the rest can be balanced across reflective and informal.
What is CPD accreditation?
Organisations arranging professional training for their workforce can ensure that courses, activities, and materials are of high quality and meet all relevant industry standards by looking for CPD accreditation.
The CPDUK website explains that ‘accredited CPD training means the learning activity has reached the required Continuing Professional Development standards and benchmarks.’
CPD accreditation is available for organisations, courses, individual trainers, webinars, events, and more.
Is CPD accreditation recognised?
CPD accreditation is not only recognised across the UK, it’s recognised worldwide!
The CPD certification service operates on a global level, providing recognition to all top-tier training providers. By awarding these training providers and their training activities or resources with a globally recognised mark of approval, the CPD affirms their high-quality and credibility.
CPD-accredited activities and training providers are all listed in the CPD Register. According to the CPD Register’s website, the CPD Register is a directory of robustly accredited CPD courses, activities, providers, and individual trainers available, all in one easy-to-search register.
Who does CPD accreditation benefit?
CPD accreditation benefits everyone involved – training provider, employer, and employee.
To gain accreditation, training providers and activities must pass the accreditation process. The process assesses the structure and value of training materials to ensure that they conform with international CPD industry benchmarks and guidelines. It assesses materials against a universally accepted and structured checklist developed by the CPD Certification Service.
The process has been designed to ensure that all CPD-accredited training providers and activities offer the highest standards of Continuing Professional Development learning.
This benefits employers and employees by making it easy for them to identify high-quality training and resources. CPD-accredited courses are widely recognised for their credibility and quality, providing employees with a recognised qualification to put on their CVs and making it easier for potential employers to identify qualified candidates.
For training providers, gaining CPD accreditation helps to position them as industry experts offering high-quality services. CPD accreditation can also help training providers to distinguish themselves from their competitors and increase the number of individuals who register for their training courses, watch their webinars, or attend their events. CPD-accredited training providers may also display the CPD logo on their websites and marketing materials. This logo serves as a powerful trust indicator, enhancing the credibility of its services among its target audience. They will also be listed in the CPD register, a searchable directory that allows those searching for CPD-accredited training to easily discover their services.
How to apply for CPD accreditation
To gain CPD accreditation, training providers must apply for accreditation through an independent CPD accreditation institution.
Popular CPD accreditation institutions include:
The cost of CPD accreditation varies depending on the organisation providing the accreditation and the type of accreditation you require.
Care Business Associate Training CPD accredited courses
Here at Care Business Associate Training, we are proud to be a CPD member and to have had our extensive catalogue of health and social care training courses CPD accredited.
This means that our training courses have reached the required Continuing Professional Development standards and benchmarks and are recognised as being of high quality and meeting all relevant industry standards.
From safeguarding to dementia awareness and medication management to train the trainer courses, we offer a varied catalogue of health and social care CPD training. Browse our range of CPD-accredited health and social care training courses online or give our team a call on 01772 816 922 to find out more.