For Criterion 6 we want you to tell us about a recent CPD activity and how it has influenced your practice.

You need to choose an activity where you can demonstrate how you've taken your new learning into your work with clients. There needs to be a traceable link between:

  1. the chosen activity
  2. the reasons for choosing it
  3. how you made use of the related learning

The criterion is divided into three sub-criteria with a total word limit of 900 words. It's up to you how you divide this between the sub-criteria.

6.1 Describe a CPD activity, relevant to your area of practice, that you've undertaken in the 12 months before applying for accreditation

Tell us about one CPD activity that you've undertaken within 12 months of submitting your application. You don’t need to provide a certificate of attendance. 

You can use distance or online learning completed after qualifying, or part of a longer post-qualifying training, as long as it took place within the 12 month time frame. You can't use your core training which you submitted in the training section of your application. Examples of CPD you can use are training courses, conferences, workshops, research, discussion groups or reading.

You can also use mandatory training required by your employer, but you must be able to explain the reason why your organisation wanted you to do that training with relevance to your practice. 

Supervision is an essential professional requirement, so can't be considered as CPD. Personal therapy can’t be included either, but may be addressed in criterion 7 when demonstrating self-awareness.

6.2 Provide the reasons for choosing the activity

Tell us why you chose this activity with reference to your current practice - ’I chose this CPD activity because...’

If particular themes, such as trauma for example, were coming up in your counselling work, you may have felt you needed additional training to work safely with these clients.

Or you may have wanted to learn about different approaches like brief therapy. Explain how this is relevant to your practice. 

6.3 Show how the activity has influenced your practice

Tell us how this CPD has subsequently influenced your way of working with a range of clients.

So continuing the example above, tell us how your training is helping you to work more safely with trauma or how you're introducing brief therapy interventions.

We’re not looking for specific case material but how the activity has influenced your practice in general.