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

Phil: Welcome to the Research in Practice podcast, where we champion evidence informed practice across children's, families and adult services conversation by conversation. I'm Phil, your host today, and I'm delighted to be joined by Gavin Morgan from Social Work England, and we'll be exploring CPD [Continuing Professional Development] today, continuing professional development. Not as paperwork but as a story of how we learn and grow in practice. Social work is full of stories of people, of moments, of learning, and CPD captures those moments helping us reflect on what we've learnt and how we've changed. So, we're going to be looking at how we're going to make CPD meaningful, not as a box ticking exercise but part of our ongoing professional narrative. Gavin, it's great to be speaking to you today, would you mind introducing yourself? 

Gavin: Yes, thanks, Phil. Hi, yes. I'm Gavin, Gavin Morgan, I'm a social worker and I work for Social Work England which is the regulator for all social workers who are based and practicing in England.

Phil: Ok. So, we'll start at the beginning, the beginning is always a very good place to start, and we'll look at framing CPD as a story, if you'd like, and CPD is a proactive active reflection, and it's a way of noticing our growth as practitioners. Why do you think then, Gavin, recording matters, really? Is it the act of writing or documenting what makes it such a powerful tool? 

Gavin: I think this really hits on the key, to be honest Phil. I think for me, personally, if I give a bit of a personal reflection on this, when I come to write up my own continuing professional development activities, I use the whole process to help me zone in on how I'm improving in terms of my social work and my delivery of social work. We're really trying to support people to move away from this idea that it's just there to satisfy a system, it's much more than that, and what we want it to do, whether it's how you sit down and write it up or type it up, or it's the actual learning that you do along the way. However you look at this, we really want people to be using it as a means of reflecting on their improvement and also assisting in terms of their improvement in their delivery of social work.

Phil: Yes, right. So, it is moving away from that box ticking exercise and having a central meaning. 

Gavin: Absolutely.

[How do we make CPD meaningful as an ongoing professional narrative for busy social workers?] 

Phil: And, now, we all know, or I know having worked at Research in Practice now for over five years, that social workers are very pressed for time. So, for a busy practitioner, what does good CPD look like and how can reflection become something embedded in the daily life rather than just seen as a sort of extraneous extra task, if you'd like?

Gavin: Yes, and absolutely, Phil. I mean, and this is something that both myself and my colleagues here at Social Work England hear from social workers all over the country – “we're really busy,” and sometimes they'll express how they find this process difficult, and my suggestion to them, my strong suggestion really is to try and embed it in what you do, and don't see it as separate to your social work. Don't see it as separate to your practice, but think about how you are developing and learning in all of that social work that you're doing. The fact is that that very tough job that we do as social workers, it usually means that as part of that work that we're doing, within that there's going to be learning and development, and I think about some of the really busy teams that I've practiced in, that's both in children's social work and adult social work. Where you had these rich conversations with other professionals, you have to constantly reflect on how you're going to improve the service you're delivering to people. I think about some of the people who I've worked with who are using substances, and about how I've had to listen to their stories, understand where they're coming from, think about how I'm going to deliver a good package of care for them. And then if that's not working, how do we change that and improve that so it makes a positive difference for them?

Now, that might just sound like I'm going about and doing my job as a social worker, but within all of that I'll have been learning and responding to, and making sure that the delivery of social work is improved along the way, and that's where I would say think about how your daily practice is responding to the needs of the people that you're working with. Because, if you do that, that's a good reflection, that's a way of really using this as not just a tick box, but actually as something which is improving your delivery of social work.

Phil: So, in a sense with that, you're kind of turning those moments of practice, when you're actually doing, and then you're getting that meaning out of it, and it's sort of acting as a reflective bridge, I suppose. So, how does recording CPD, how does it help maintain that sense of professional accountability and integrity? 

Gavin: I mean, on one hand there is something about… you're preparing something which then goes to the regulator because ultimately that's what we're asking people to do, we're asking for people to demonstrate a minimum of two pieces of professional development each year. But, in terms of the wider benefits of the approach that we're asking for, what it requires you to do is to spend some time not just doing, but then also reflecting on what you've done, and every time I've come down and sat down to do that it's made me just think a little bit differently about what I've done, especially when I'm doing it retrospectively. So, I think about some child protection work that I've done in the past, and, yes, I've learnt along the way as I've done it. But then when I've come back to it later on, and then I've reflected on that learning within that. So, an example that I'll just give relatively randomly is some of the work that I've done with young people in the past in a child protection capacity.

So, I remember working with a teenager, and this was somebody who I was constantly being told by many professionals ‘This person has mental health issues’ and ‘This person needs to be secured as soon as possible’ and that almost… I started to believe the narrative that I was being presented with. Until just one professional, one other professional had this voice of dissent. So a youth offending worker said 'You know what Gavin, I think there's more going on here, I think you need to get out of this paradigm of thought that you're in.' And when she said that, I met with this young person. It was actually for the first time because I was working in an assessment team at that point, and this young person, when she told me her story, I realised that a lot of what was going on was difficult relationships in her family - all sorts of issues in terms of experiencing parental substance misuse, and domestic abuse. And actually, when you looked at it again, you realised that there was something going on in terms of the social circumstances impacting on her wellbeing and welfare. And as I said, a narrative that had been created that actually was not a real reflection of what was going on for this young person.

And the reason I'm mentioning this is because I changed my tact with that particular young person and the way in which I delivered support to her. nd it was very much about working with her. When I came back to reflect on that later on and even could argue that I'm doing it now with you Phil, is that it's had an impact in terms of my learning and not making assumptions. And that whole thing about labelling of young people - we know how damaging that can be, and it didn't just impact on the way I worked with that particular young person. It's affected the way I've worked with people since. And that's the type of learning… and when you come down to sit and write and record, where it really starts to have that positive impact on your practice as a whole, and that's certainly how I approach it. It works differently for different people, but that's why I think there's a value in the actual recording of your professional development activities.

Phil: Yes. So, you're learning directly from experience, and I suppose there's a purpose to the CPD then in growth, really, from that experience. So, you've talked about an experience there, you've shared one there, and thank you for that, and what happens then when we don't pause to reflect? When the story of the practice goes untold, and I guess building from that, you've already shared some of those insights that can emerge, but what specifically when people take time to write or record what they've learnt? What do they gain from that? 

Gavin: It's a really good question Phil. And just thinking about it from my point of view there's two angles you can look at this from. I do think it's important for us to learn from our mistakes and learn what goes wrong. I speak to students about this a lot and saying, 'In this profession, guaranteed we're going to make mistakes,' and what we shouldn't do is pretend that we won't make mistakes or just try and make sure a mistake will never happen. Obviously, we want to prevent harm and we don't want to be making mistakes all the time. But at the same time, once we accept that mistakes will happen, what then it enables us to do, it liberates us emotionally. But it also enables then to learn from those and put in practice to help us improve and help us with our delivery of our social work services.

But there's another angle to this which is learning from our successes as well. There was a lecturer in Canada I was speaking to, not too long ago, and he said to me that sometimes our big failures ‘Both here in Canada’ he said, ‘but it also applies to yourselves in England and also the wider UK is that we're so keen to look at what went wrong, we're not always looking at what went right.’ And when I heard that it made me think that actually, that is a really valuable thing. So actually, going back and again reflecting on that learning of where things have gone right, perhaps enables us to replicate that. So, yes, let's learn from where things can improve but also how do we improve things by replicating the things that are going well in practice as well.

[Moving CPD away from being a tick box exercise towards embedding it in day-to-day practice] 

Phil: Sure. So, it's CPD can be used as a supportive function then in that sense, because work can be challenging, can't it? And, part of perhaps maybe, and maybe you agree with this, that CPD can also help us to process the emotional side of work because we're all humans, aren't we? And we're dealing with humans. So that kind of reflection, it can help practitioners manage stress and perhaps prevent burnout or make sense of difficult experiences? 

Gavin: Yes, absolutely, Phil. I mean, we know that this job is about working with people and it's also about working with people sometimes at their most difficult times in their lives, and as social workers one of our core skills is our ability to empathise, and empathy is a really powerful tool. It's an essential tool in social work, but it's also something which can mean we can suffer secondary trauma as a result of the people that we're working with because we are empathising with people who are suffering with mental health issues, people who are maybe experiencing trauma in the form of being exposed to things like domestic abuse. I mean, there's so many different examples of where a social worker might experience that secondary trauma, and not least big incidents like disasters, things like COVID. The COVID-19 pandemic, where a whole profession was exposed to these very challenging environments. Now, with continuing professional development, again, moving away from the tickbox exercise, but how do we use that to help us process some of these things and that's where things like peer reflections can be really useful. That is another requirement that social workers are expected to demonstrate as part of their professional development where you don't just learn it in isolation, but you learn through those conversations with other people.

[Reflection – either through writing or in discussion with peers]

Now again, they can take a form in all sorts of different ways. Things like clinical supervision, discussions with other professionals. But there's no reason why it can't be that sit down that you have with one or more colleagues where you will start to reflect on how something has made you feel and good relational social work should start with the self. Where you're asking, how is this, where do I fit in with all of this, and that will also help you to perhaps decompress, and reflect on some of those feelings that you might be experiencing. I would say it's very important in social work that we ensure this happens. Some of our colleagues in therapy, you know, in the therapeutic services… I would say at times if I'm really honest are much better at this than we can be in social work, because there is a tendency in social work sometimes in these very high pressured jobs, particularly in safeguarding roles to work with one individual or one family, and then move onto the next and the next, and not taking enough time to decompress with that. And that's where that good reflection with others comes in, and it will help us to deal with some of those difficult emotions we're experiencing.

I mean, I think that's important for ourselves, the social workers, it's important for our personal lives and the ones that are around us in our personal lives as well. But, of course, it's also important for the people who receive social work services because it's not in their interest to have a burnt out social worker, a social worker who is struggling emotionally as well. So, I would say to anyone, again, make the best use of your professional development, because there's no reason why that shouldn't be featuring as part of it, and some people would say it's an essential part of it, and we might be doing it for ourselves. But, we might also be doing it for the people who deserve that excellent service that we deliver as social workers.

[Kolb’s reflective cycle] 

Phil: So, it's something of integrating it very much into the heart of the practice and you talked about reflection there. So, having a framework helps to make reflection concrete. One reflection that many practitioners find useful is Kolb's reflective cycle. So, that's experience, reflection, analysis, action. Walking through that process, experience would be noting what happens, why it matters, reflection, or how did it feel, and what stood out to me, and then the analysis, what does this tell us about our practice or about the systems we work within, and then action, what will I do differently as a result. So, reflecting on Kolb's reflective cycle, it begins with experience, but not all experiences become learning. So, in a continuing personal development context, what transforms a moment into something we actually learn from, do you think? 

Gavin: So, thinking about that, Phil, it's about ourselves. We have to be, to take ownership of that and use it as part of our learning, and convert it into learning almost. I mean, it's interesting actually, we're talking about this reflective cycle. I'll be honest with you, when I come to reflect, I don't honestly think about this reflective cycle, and I only come back to it when someone like yourself mentions it. So, I hope I don't sound like a fraud when I talk about this, but then when I see the process, you know the experience, the reflection analysis and action. It's, like, yes, actually, that is what I'm trying to express in the recording. So, I would say to anybody do use this, you don't have to use that particular cycle, but I think it certainly helps because it will help you focus particularly maybe if you're struggling to think about how you have professionally developed over a period of time. Maybe that's where you will zone in or maybe one particular experience and then you can really sort of sit and reflect on that. I mean, I will say there's this point about training here, training is a really important part of our learning. It's a really useful part of our learning and you can use that as part of your professional development. Maybe even you should do, particularly if your employer is telling you to, because that's essential in terms of the job that you're doing. But, that is not the only learning and sometimes people get overly fixated on that being the professional development activity they should be doing.

Phil: What other forms could be used to flesh out the CPD that you're creating? 

Gavin: It's probably really good, Phil, that we're talking about this because that is one of the constant things that I hear from people, and who perhaps think that there's only one type of professional development, and I think sometimes what we do is we take the term continuing professional development, and we shrink it to CPD, and then CPD becomes another word for training, but it isn't. It can be, it's anything, absolutely anything which assists with your professional development. So, it could be training, but it could also be something that you read, maybe journals, articles, it could be podcasts, it could be those conversations that we have which we can also then be included as peer reflections. But, the point is there's no one type of continuing professional development, we've deliberately kept it open because we know that there is different styles of learning for different people, and as long as we can show that this is having a positive impact on your professional development, then that is absolutely fine. So, I'd say to anyone, any social worker out there listening to this, is that you keep that in mind and don't restrict yourself in terms of what could be included as part of your professional development journey.

We're saying it can be anything that will help you in terms of your development as a social worker and the way in which you deliver the services, deliver your social work. So, with this particular model, I think it's a particularly helpful model to use, particularly if you're struggling, and that's where you come also to convert the learning or convert the experience into actually learning, because it might be at that point that is actually the point, it goes from being an experience to actually being professional development. That point when you sit down and you record it, and whether that was by design or not, I'm not going to say, but the point is that's, I would say, how you can use it, and it's certainly how I find myself sometimes using it myself as a social worker who is required to do this as well.

Phil: Gavin, you don't come across as a fraud at all, that is very honest, and, you know, Kolb's reflective cycle is useful if it's useful to you as a practitioner. If you have your own way about this then that's fine as well. But, I mean, part of what Research in Practice… we hope to provide those sort of tools that practitioners can find useful day to day. Again, sort of, looking at the reflection side of things, when it comes to actually recording the CPD, the core expectation. And now you correct me if I'm wrong, but the core expectation is that your reflection is captured and traceable. So, with that in mind, do you think reflection needs to be written down to be effective?Aand that has to be in perfect prose or can you use voice notes or quick prompts, or those kinds of things? Do they work as well or is there a particular way that this needs to be recorded?

Gavin: So, first of all I'll say, Phil, that this idea that it's traceable. Actually, we're not looking to actually trace it back to its source. What we're looking for is your… as a social worker, it's your learning and your reflection. In fact if anything, we're asking for people to insure that everything is anonymised. So, we don't want to see anything which will enable us to work out where this has happened and who it's happened with. So, I'd say to any social workers out there who are approaching this now is make sure you do anonymise - you don't include any names, locations, or anything which would enable a third party to look at it and say I think I know where that might've taken place, or work it out based on your recordings. Now in terms of the how and what you do, we say you do have to write this down, and when I say written down I'm not talking about pen and paper, I'm talking about typing into the form that we have through the online portals. Because, every social worker in England is registered with Social Work England and has their own individual portal into the system. And what you do is you make sure that you've got to type it up and make sure that it's in there.

Phil: Does it need to be perfect prose in terms of when you're recording it?

Gavin: So, I would say, and this is what I say to all social workers, we are degree level professionals or above. We should be able to communicate well in writing. It's an expectation and that's what I expect to see, and particularly when I've been required to look at people's submissions. That said, this isn't a spelling test, or a grammar test either. We are… we don't knock points off, so to speak, with people's submissions. I would say, you know, I hope this doesn't sound contradictory - it should be at a standard that you would expect from a social worker, from a professional who should be able to communicate well both verbally and in writing. But, if there is the odd typo, if things, you know, then we are forgiving about that. But we want people to spend time on this. So, that's the balance that you make. So, don't worry about the odd spelling, that is forgivable. But do make sure that this is worthy of us as a profession. And remember, I'm saying to everybody we should be doing it for ourselves, but we should also be doing it for the people who are on the receiving end of services.

One other way that you might want to approach it is imagine somebody that, you know, a member of the public who… particularly somebody who might be reliant on social work services is with you when you're writing it. Would they be happy with what you've written? Would they say, 'Yes, this is what I'd hope from a social worker.' Because if they are that's probably the right… you've hit the right balance there. But yes, so that's the… that's certainly what I'd be saying there.

[Analysis is about making sense of learning, how you go from the experience to what you want to take forward] 

Phil: That's good advice, yes. So, I mean again, and that's getting back to the heart of it, of actually making the activity of it a real activity and purposeful and meaningful, and part of that is hoping back to Kolb again. But the analysis stage is where you start to make meaning, and obviously as you're constructing and as you're typing, and as you're putting these things together, that's part of the process. Do you think in some ways that's where an element of professional development actually happens? Because you're in the sense making there, using that sort of analysis process as you're placing things together. So do you think that's where real professional development happens in the sense making, making sense of it when you're recording it? 

Gavin: I sometimes think that it's a bit like a plate of spaghetti when you approach an activity that you've done when you're not quite sure what the… it comes back to the experience. So the experience itself might be the plate of spaghetti where there's a bit of unravelling where you're trying to straighten everything out and make sense of it. So that is where the actual act of both the recording and just the thinking about it and the processing then enables you to then make sense of it. And then it goes from that slightly more obscure experience to then an actual piece of learning where you can actually then answer the core questions. Which is how is this activity helping to improve my social work? How has it helped to improve the way in which I deliver social work, and crucially, the most important thing, how has it helped to improve outcomes for the people who receive social work services either in that moment or potentially in the future?

[Action is about impact – how will this learning and reflection shape what I will do in the future?] 

Phil: Sure. So, closing that circle, that Kolb's reflective circle, the action stage is about change and sometimes, and often, change is uncomfortable. That's not necessarily a bad thing. How can practitioners stay open to being challenged by their own reflections from a CPD perspective? Is this for example something that practitioners can seek support from? Like with professional peer discussion, and you mentioned workshops earlier in terms of training and that kind of thing, is that part and parcel of that process do you think? 

Gavin: I think the first thing that I would say is remember, going back a step, is remember impact. All of this should be about impact. One of the sad things that I see sometimes is where somebody has done a really good… you can see elements of really good learning and development in what they've done, but it's so descriptive that they've missed the final goal of actually saying what the impact is, and that's where the action comes in as well. This is what I did do, this is what I'm going to do in the future because that shows where you're going, and that's the difference between attending training and actually doing professional development where it's having an impact on your social work practice.

But this is where those other examples of learning that you've talked about, such as through the peer reflections, are really valuable here. Because I've tended to find that my best learning has been in the company of others, whether it's other social workers or other professionals. And sometimes it's those challenging conversations that you have, like the one I mentioned earlier. But I think about one particular work place, there was constant reflection going on between a group of peers that we had where we were challenging each other in terms of boundaries, in terms of being of good safeguarding work and proactive social work. And they would come almost spontaneously, and this was stuff that for me, it had impact because I'm still talking about it now. I still hear those colleagues talking to me even though I haven't worked with them for years, and that's the difference. And that's where that good learning and converting that into action really comes into play.

Phil: Yes. I really like that, and it's something about moving beyond the formality of a box which you need to type into, which is obviously the process that you have to do. But you're really talking, and the language you're talking about, is really connected to the practice. So what does a living CPD record look like in that way - something that's alive, one that's not retrospective but generative, and it's actually working for the practitioner. So, how can that kind of reflection keep our learning alive and evolving so that it's part and parcel of what we do? 

Gavin: So, when I'm certainly looking at submissions, what I really look for is that impact. And I look for examples of where somebody has really demonstrated that that learning is going to have an impact on others. And it’s then a really good reflection, I think. You would be able to see what, how that social worker has improved in terms of their service delivery, and you ask yourself how would somebody on the receiving end of those social work services feel about that? Would they be pleased with the service that they're going to receive from this social worker? And that's the difference between a really good reflective piece which thinks about impact and actions based on an experience versus a more descriptive account which perhaps hasn't - there's not been too much investment in that reflection. Where you're reaching in terms of asking yourself ‘What has that person learned and how is it going to impact on their practice?’

Phil: Now, we're kind of reaching the end of our conversation here, and if you could leave listeners with one reflection then as we've been talking about reflection a lot. One reflection, what would that be? Something about life long learning and what that really means? Not as an obligation, but as a way of sort of staying awake and connected to the work. Do you have any advice there? 

Gavin: So I think Phil, dare I say this, is to try and enjoy this process. And I should not even use the word process when I'm saying this. But try and enjoy it. And how do you do that? And again, how do I do this? I do this by focusing on something that I've been particularly invested in, something that I particularly value, maybe even something that I've been proud of over the, you know, last year. When I find myself reflecting on that type of learning and professional development, I find it much easier to write about it. And I also find that it is the most useful as well. And it's also the kind of thing that if I was speaking to somebody who's receiving a social work service from me, I'd hope that they would… or I'd think that they would look at it and say 'Yes, I can see now how that is going to benefit me should I ever receive a service from you in the future.' And that's what I'd say we should all be doing, and we've got 100,000 social workers, or more than, in England who are all delivering excellent services all over the country, and I appreciate how busy everybody is.

But, also be proud of the profession that we're in, and reflect on something really good. And it might not be the easiest thing, and it might've been where there's mistakes. But as long as we can say ‘This is how we've improved and how we've developed,’ that's going to be the best type of learning that we can show. And, I think that's something that we deserve ourselves, but it's also for the people who are reliant as well all over the country.

[Outro] 

Phil: Wonderful. That's a great way to close it out. So, thank you, Gavin, and thank you for having this chat with me today, and obviously thank you dear listener for taking time to listen to us. Now you can find resources on reflective practice and CPD on the Research in Practice website, including a visual aid of Kolb's reflective cycle which we kind of used as an analogy earlier, and related materials. Just to say then, if you've enjoyed this conversation, explore our other podcasts, and let us know your thoughts by emailing us at ask@researchandpractice.co.uk , or finding us on LinkedIn. Thank you very much for listening.