Kate Sylvester-Kilroy is a director of Old Road Securities Ltd, a land promotion, development and bloodstock company and have been working in planning for just over three decades. She have been a member of the RTPI since 1996.
In May 2024, I was randomly selected for the RTPI’s Annual CPD monitoring. I knew what to expect as I had signed up for the excellent RTPI online CPD seminar training relating to professional practice and standards which supports the documentation on the website, so I was good to go. But the email is official and it made me reflect on the importance of the RTPI as an Institution, of which I have been a member for a long time.
CPD is a key part of maintaining a high level of competence in any profession. For RTPI members that aren’t student or retired members, or Affiliates, it’s a membership requirement. This means that every member must prepare a Professional Development Plan (PDP) outlining their development needs for the next two years, undertake a minimum of 50 hours of CPD activity in any two-year period, and maintain a record of CPD activity.
Part of me felt my professional life was going to assessed via my PDP (which is indeed what the RTPI assess as part of the monitoring process. My PDP contains a wide range of goals. Some of these are quite personal, reflecting my skill gaps, particularly my struggles around IT, and how I am trying to address this via my CPD. My CPD is reflective, and I use the online RTPI webinars which are a great, and often, free resource.
To help combat my IT issues, I have signed up for digital planning CPD, but I look out for the digital content across all CPD subject matters to try and gain a better grasp of knowledge. It’s ongoing and that’s part of the reflection for me and this comes back to my PDP. Everyone will have their own strengths and weaknesses which they will want to address and that has been the great benefit of the CPD process as I see it as personalising and taking ownership of the process and having a growth mindset to be the best planner that I can be.
In my quest to enhance my digital and IT skills, I use the new system of logging CPD via the RTPI website as it is very efficient, and I encourage other members to give it a go – if I can log CPD this way I know others definitely can! It also made the process of my annual CPD monitoring review simpler and less stressful as all my CPD is logged and collated together under each year. It can also be printed off or saved along with my PDPs, if required. You can log your CPD in your profile area on the website.
I hope this blog will encourage other members to use this way of collating their CPD and also address areas of professional development which need to be strengthened and how reflective CPD can be a beneficial tool to enhance your professional practice. In terms of timing, I received my monitoring annual CPD email on a Thursday (members have 6 weeks to submit their CPD, PDP’s and PII) and my documents were all submitted to the RTPI by the following Monday. By Wednesday morning I had received confirmation from the RTPI that I have complied with their Code of Professional Conduct.
Lastly, the team at the RTPI are a great resource too and are there to help and advise members with any queries. If you ever need any help you can reach out to them at at [email protected].
