How CC Inform can boost your CPD and help you stay in social work

Inform's wealth of learning and CPD log, make it easy for you to meet regulatory requirements and remain on the register

By Mithran Samuel on November 24, 2023 in Inform Adults, Inform Children, Workforce

Credit: Anton/Adobe Stock

A subscription to Community Care Inform makes it easy for you to fulfil Social Work England’s annual requirements to record continuing professional development (CPD) so that you can stay on the register.

Our Inform Adults and Inform Children sites hold a wealth of learning on all aspects of social work and in a variety of formats, including webinars, podcasts, practice tools and written guidance.

You can then use our CPD log to record your learning in exactly the format that the regulator requires, export this information into a Word document or print it off and then use this to complete your submission in your Social Work England account.

Social Work England’s requirements

To renew registration in England, social workers must submit two pieces of CPD to the regulator, one of which must have been reflected upon with a peer, by the annual 30 November deadline.

The submitted CPD can include any activity you feel has benefited your practice but must have been carried out within the registration year (1 December to 30 November).

In your submission, you must record on the regulator’s online form:

The type of activity (selected from a dropdown menu).
The date of the activity.
What you have learnt.
A reflection on the positive impact the CPD has had, or will have, on your practice and those you work with.
Which parts of Social Work England’s CPD standard you have met through the activity.

There is then a field in which you can describe what you have learnt from discussing the activity with a peer, which you must complete for one of your CPD submissions.

How your Inform log can help you

It’s easy to log any piece of learning from Inform. Simply click on the ‘Add to my CPD log’ button in the ‘Manage article’ box on any article or learning tool.

Our CPD log matches Social Work England’s requirements providing space for you to store what each CPD activity was, what you learnt, the positive impact it has had or will have on your practice and which parts of the CPD standard you feel were met.

There’s also an optional question to respond to in which you can set out what you have learnt from reflecting on the CPD with a peer.

Once you are ready to submit your CPD to Social Work England, you can easily access your full CPD log, by clicking on ‘My CPD’.

You can then print the item of CPD you need or export it as a Word document, from which you can copy and paste the relevant information into Social Work England’s online form.

While there is plenty of learning you can access on Inform to meet your CPD requirements, you can also use our log to note down any of your other CPD from the year, such as attending a training course or event.

A full version of this guide is available on the Inform Children and Inform Adults sites.

Support for practitioners in Wales

If you work in Wales, we have an equivalent CPD log to enable you to fulfil Social Care Wales’s requirements for renewing your registration every three years.

It records the date of the CPD and enables you to answer the required questions the regulator asks in relation to any submission:

What have you learned?
How has it contributed to your practice?
How much time have you spent on this activity?

You can then export your log entry as a Word document or print it out and then use the information to fill out the relevant entry in your online Social Care Wales account.

For more information, see Social Care Wales’s guidance on CPD.

Not sure if you have access to Community Care Inform? Inform is typically purchased through an organisational subscription. We partner with local authorities, children’s trusts, NHS trusts, universities, colleges and charities to support their workforces. Contact your manager, principal social worker or learning and development team to check whether you could already have access to a licence through your organisation. You can also contact our helpdesk for more information. If you are an independent or agency social worker, find out about individual subscriptions here.

Community Care Inform, CPD, social work registration