Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

STEP’s CPD year runs from 1 April to 31 March, in line with our membership year. If you aren’t sure what to plan for, or have a goal in mind and would like to make your CPD count towards it, our Personal Development Plan will help you with your CPD planning. It’s not compulsory to use it, but you may find it helpful to plan your personal and professional development for the year ahead.

STEP members are required to maintain a record of their CPD. This can be through an employer’s learning and development system, another professional body or regulator’s recording tool or through using STEP’s CPD recording form.

STEP conducts ongoing reviews of members’ CPD records and may request to see them at any time during the year. If requested to submit a CPD record then a member should return their CPD record, plus the CPD Cover Sheet, within two months of the original request to cpd@step.org.

Watch Elaine Blades TEP talk about reflective practice, which is at the heart of STEP's CPD Policy.

STEP operates an outcomes-based approach to CPD with a focus on the maintenance and development of professional competence through undertaking CPD that is relevant to the individual. Using role benchmarking, members are required to match their CPD against the key responsibilities in their work role. In this way, they can meet their stakeholders’ reasonable expectations of them in their work role and their obligations as a professional.

It encompasses technical competence, but should also include skills that help you to perform as a rounded professional. Therefore you should also consider personal, management and business skills as key development areas. Refreshing an awareness of ethical practice, in line with the STEP Code of Professional Conduct, is also essential CPD.

Watch Robin McGhee TEP, a member of STEP's Professional Standards Committee, provide an introduction to ethics.