The importance of CPD in a Multidisciplinary Team.

We've all heard the saying: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." - and I couldn't agree more.

The focus for this blog post is on the importance of CPD and training within in the workplace. The school where I work is really focused on both of these and I'm reaping the benefits from it.
Last week, when the therapy team were at work but our students were on their Easter holidays, the team decided to use some of the time we would have spend in sessions to work on developing our CPD folders and improving our practice. The therapy team where I work consists of the following: 2 OTs, 2 SALTs, 1 Nurse, 1 Clinical Psychologist and 2 Assistant Psychologists.

Each member of the team presented a specific aspect of the work there are involved in or on the area which they specialise in. Over a week presentations were given on subjects such as Attachment theories, to the Tactile system and sensory defensiveness, to pictorial communication aids all the way to an introduction to Forensic OT (which if you can't already guess from previous posts was mine!)

It was so interesting to learn together about the different areas which were taught. The consensus from each of the team members was that it was a roaring success. Being able to sit down together as a team and learn about different ways of working with the students we have was a real inspiration and helped us to think of how we could incorporate other disciplines methods of working into our own to make our interventions better.

Another benefit to it was to see how we could work as a team better by incorporating all of our skills more effectively. The importance of working together for a shared goal and integrating our methods of working and expertise to best work with our students.

I think it would be fair to say that each member of the team spent the week buzzing from the excitement of learning new information and skills which we could put into practice the following week when the students returned. It has really expanded my knowledge and I feel has helped us as a team to understand each others occupations better and to pull on each others knowledge a bit more. Being in a central office together means that we can clinically discuss our students progress and brainstorm ideas with each other in a really effective way.

We already have plans for the school holiday where we are going to use the time to start a journal club where each individual brings a profession specific article or piece of research relating to our area of work.

I would really encourage you all to perhaps do something similar, to start a journal club or similar - it really does make a difference to your practice!

Do you already do something similar or have a different approach to CPD? I'd love to know so please leave a comment below :).

Happy OTuesday,
Kate