As we wrap up our renewals and reflect on our professional development (PD) from 2024, we can begin to consider how we can grow and learn with intention in 2025. Now that you have reflected on your previous year, this is a great time to consider your learning goals for 2025. Consider these questions:
- At the end of the next registry year (February 1, 2025, to January 31, 2026), what do you want to be different about your practice as a social worker?
- What knowledge, values, or skills do you have to shift over the coming year?
- What do you want to learn as a social worker?
At the NSCSW, we are busy planning for this year, and we want to help you answer these questions. This blog post provides overviews of our plans for PD in this upcoming year and our Professional Development Standards, including ways you can complete PD outside of our webinars and lunch and learns and how you might want to grow and learn with intention this year.
PD matters in social work
At its core, PD is learning. Other associations and colleges use terms like continuing education, career advancement, and occupational training; no matter the title or term, learning is about the building and deconstructing of knowledge, values, and skills. For many, it also can have a spiritual element. There are many ways we learn, including formal, informal, and experiential.
At the NSCSW, PD is part of our regulatory mandate towards cultivating safe(r) social work in Nova Scotia. Fulfilling PD requirements is also an opportunity for members to critically consider how they want to grow in their practice.
Each year our members are required to complete up to 40 hours of PD per year, including up to 20 hours of formal learning and 6 hours of learning related to our mandated topics; many members exceed these minimum standards. Our PD standards help highlight the differences between Formal, Informal, and Mandated topics. Formal learning opportunities are typically structured like academic courses, webinars, seminars, and lunch and learns. Informal learning is usually found in experiences and activities such as volunteering, supervision, mentoring, and advocacy.
So, how will you approach your PD in 2025?
Bringing you opportunities for lifelong learning
The PD programming delivered by the College is guided by the PD Standards, NSCSW By-laws & Regulations, and data (e.g. analysis of complaints, candidacy, quality assurance, member feedback), and is supported by a team of volunteer social workers in our Professional Development Committee. The members of this committee help define the scope and strategy for the registry year and support me in planning, delivery, and evaluation of learning activities at the College. As always, our PD is grounded in the principles of:
- Relevance to the field of social work
- Collaboration
- Focus on justice
- Applicability to practice
- Future-focused
- Fostering critical thinking & self-reflection
- Sustainability
In 2024 we held over 90 hours of online professional development lunch & learns, seminars, and webinars. This year we are continuing to offer learning opportunities for our members, both online and in-person. We have a plan for over 30 learning events in 2025 organized and led by the NSCSW online and in-person. Our members also continue to have access to the high-quality and engaging learning opportunities led by the Canadian Association of Social Workers.
For this year we will be hosting learning opportunities focused on skill and knowledge development, shifting of worldviews and values, and opportunities to build relationships and connections with other social workers. Some of the PD we are planning for are:
- Communities of Practice: We will be hosting our quarterly CoP starting in March, along with beginning closed-group sessions for specific communities and identities. We will be starting with a closed group community of practice for Black and African Nova Scotian social workers, led by our Associate Registrar, Bria Symonds.
- Cultivating our Wellness: This year we will have quarterly sessions focused exclusively on preventing vicarious trauma, secondary stress, compassion fatigue and burnout in social workers.
- Climate Change & Sustainability: We are beginning a four-part series in January focused on social workers roles in addressing issues of hope and advocacy related to the climate emergency.
- Roadshow: In March we will begin a series of in-person events around the province for educational and connection opportunities with social workers in the region.
- Mini-conference: On May 2 we will be hosting a virtual mini-conference with a focus on building connections, relationships, and supporting the development of professional social work identity with the theme of Building Connections & Activating Hope with social workers from across the province.
- Africentric Social Work Practice: Learning opportunities that help social workers learn about principles of Africentric social work.
These are just a few of the sessions we are currently planning. We also have plans for sessions and engagements focused on social justice, decolonization, social work ethics, and practical skills like documentation and communication. Our bi-weekly newsletter, website, and Eventbrite page are the best places to stay aware of upcoming sessions as they are announced.
Aside from the content we are planning, we also have resources and support for members to create their own PD opportunities. If you want to plan your own PD activity, you can learn more about that process in the blog post, “Developing & hosting professional development activities.”
We can also advertise and amplify learning opportunities that exist in community or from other organizations in our bi-weekly newsletter that reaches thousands of social workers. There are many events online and throughout the community that meet our principles for planning PD and can benefit social workers. If you are aware of an engagement or if you are planning an event that can support the PD of other social workers in the province, submit an advertising request with the College using our Advertising Requests form.
We are also looking for members who are interested in developing PD activities with the College. If you have knowledge, skills, or practice interests related to safe(r) social work practice that you would like to share, send me an email and let’s talk about your ideas! Planning and delivering PD is also a PD activity and counts towards members’ formal learning activities.
Setting forth with intent
However you plan to learn this year, I hope you can do it intentionally.
- Which personal and professional goals do you wish to pursue?
- What are the different forms of knowledge and skill that will shift in you this year?
- How might your values, beliefs, and worldview develop as you engage in topics of social justice and decolonization?
Setting learning goals this year could help you in more clearly understanding what you have learned and how you are growing. As you set these learning goals, consider how you will shift your knowledge, values, and skills in support of your social work practice. When we reach the end of the year, you will be more able to perceive and reflect on the actions and steps you have taken to develop yourself professionally.
As you learn with intention this year, you may attend the many sessions we offer at the College, develop your own PD activities, or engage with external learning opportunities online or in-person. Either way, don’t limit yourself in what you can and want to learn. Growing and learning with intention doesn’t mean you have to be strict or rigid in your approach.
Thinking strategically and critically about how you want to develop this year can support you in your continued development of ethical practice. It can also lesson the work of your yearly PD activity submissions!
Workplace support
Ideally, every agency and context where social work happens would prioritize at least 5% of a staff member’s time towards learning and development. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Many members across the province often tell me they struggle to find time to complete their PD.
If this is a barrier for you, setting learning goals early and communicating them to your supervisor directly early in the year can often help in creating the space for participating in PD activities. Aligning your learning goals with the PD standards and the strategic objectives of your agency or practice context can help as well.
We are working with employers throughout the province to continue to develop a learning and development culture that empowers social workers to take advantage of learning activities with the College and in community as part of their day-to-day work tasks. Ideally, our members wouldn’t have to complete their PD on the evenings, weekends, or outside of their paid work time. PD is an essential part of the regulatory mandate of safe(r) social work in Nova Scotia and you should be able to learn on the job.
We’re in this together
As we enter this new year at the College, we invite all our members to grow and learn with intention. Please take advantage of what we have to offer and consider participating in learning activities in your own community and practice context as well. There are many opportunities for learning at the College and throughout the province that help social workers maintain and develop ethical and safe(r) practice. Learning is the most human thing in the world, and when we make intentional space and time for our learning, we can better understand the impact of the learning on our knowledge, values, and skills.
If you need any support around your plans for your yearly PD, reach out and let’s chat. Hopefully this time next year you will be able to reflect back and see how setting intentional learning goals supported you in your practice.