What are my PD requirements, and when do I need to complete them?

PLEASE NOTE: The QA portal is no longer available. All registrants will be provided detailed information in early 2021 about the new QA system and its launch date. Registrants will also be provided with details concerning Professional Development (PD) tool submission requirements in the new year. In the interim, we have developed a fillable PDF form (Word version also available) to help registrants track their PD requirements. These can be kept in your personal portfolio, including any evidence of participation in learning activities. These templates are for your records only and you do not need to submit these templates to CRPO.

To find out your PD requirements, click on the year in which you first registered with CRPO.

All registrants are responsible for completing and submitting their Professional Development (PD) requirements to the College every two years. As a 2015 registrant, your tools are due on November 30th every odd-numbered year. (e.g. 2021, 2023, etc.) This two-year time span is referred to as a “PD reporting cycle.”

Before the end of each reporting cycle, you will need to ensure that you have submitted the following to the College:

  • At least 1 Self-Assessment completed during the reporting cycle
  • At least 1 Learning Plan (which includes at minimum one Goal with corresponding Action Plan and Reflection)
  • At least 1 Learning Record which documents engagement in 40 hours of learning activities for each two-year cycle
    • These hours MUST have occurred during the relevant reporting cycle
    • At least 1 of the activities must be experiential; at least 1 of the activities must be didactic

See the Professional Development Guide for more information about your ongoing requirements.

All registrants are responsible for completing and submitting their Professional Development (PD) requirements to the College every two years. This two-year time span is referred to as a “PD reporting cycle.”

Your first PD reporting cycle spanned from the date you registered in 2016 to November 30, 2018. You were given the voluntary option to submit your PD tools for the first reporting cycle.

The submission deadline for the current reporting cycle was November 30, 2020. All 2016 registrants have a mandatory obligation to observe this submission deadline. The requirements (outlined below) represent the cumulative requirements for both reporting cycles which were due on November 30, 2020. All tools submitted to the College between your date of registration and November 30, 2020 can and will be counted towards your minimum, cumulative requirements for this submission deadline.

Your requirements for the November 30, 2020 submission deadline included:

  • At least 1 completed Self-Assessment
  • At least 1 Learning Plan (which includes at minimum one Goal with corresponding Action Plan and Reflection)
  • At least 1 Learning Record which documents engagement in 80 hours of learning activities
    • These hours MUST have occurred between your date of registration and November 30, 2020
    • At least 1 of the activities must be experiential; at least 1 of the activities must be didactic

Looking forward, your PD requirements will be due on November 30th every even-numbered year (e.g. 2022, 2024, etc.) Please review the Professional Development Guide for more information about your ongoing requirements.

All registrants are responsible for completing and submitting their Professional Development (PD) requirements to the College every two years. As a 2017 registrant, your tools are due on November 30th every odd-numbered year. (e.g. 2021, 2023, etc.) This two-year time span is referred to as a “PD reporting cycle.”

Before the end of each reporting cycle, you will need to ensure that you have submitted the following to the College:

  • At least 1 completed Self-Assessment during the reporting cycle
  • At least 1 Learning Plan (which includes at minimum one Goal with corresponding Action Plan and Reflection)
  • At least 1 Learning Record which documents engagement in 40 hours of learning activities
    • These hours MUST have occurred during the relevant reporting cycle
    • At least 1 of the activities must be experiential; at least 1 of the activities must be didactic

See the Professional Development Guide for more information about your ongoing requirements.

All registrants are responsible for completing and submitting their Professional Development (PD) requirements to the College every two years. As a 2018 registrant, your tools are due on November 30th every even-numbered year. (e.g. 2022, 2024, etc.) This two-year time span is referred to as a “PD reporting cycle.”

Before the end of each reporting cycle, you will need to ensure that you have submitted the following to the College:

  • At least 1 completed Self-Assessment during the reporting cycle
  • At least 1 Learning Plan (which includes at minimum one Goal with corresponding Action Plan and Reflection)
  • At least 1 Learning Record which documents engagement in 40 hours of learning activities for each two-year cycle
    • These hours MUST have occurred during the relevant reporting cycle
    • At least 1 of the activities must be experiential; at least 1 of the activities must be didactic

See the Professional Development Guide for more information about your ongoing requirements.

All registrants are responsible for completing and submitting their Professional Development (PD) requirements to the College every two years . As a 2019 registrant, your tools are due on November 30th every odd-numbered year. (e.g. 2021, 2023, etc.) This two-year time span is referred to as a “PD reporting cycle.”

Before the end of each reporting cycle, you will need to ensure that you have submitted the following to the College:

  • At least 1 completed Self-Assessment during the reporting cycle
  • At least 1 Learning Plan (which includes at minimum one Goal with corresponding Action Plan and Reflection)
  • At least 1 Learning Record which documents engagement in 40 hours of learning activities
    • These hours MUST have occurred during the relevant reporting cycle
    • At least 1 of the activities must be experiential; at least 1 of the activities must be didactic

See the Professional Development Guide for more information about your ongoing requirements.

As a 2020 registrant, the College expects you to complete your New Registrant Requirements within 2 months of your date of registration.

The New Registrant requirements include:

  • Completing a Self-Assessment
  • Beginning a Learning Plan (by documenting at least 1 professional development Goal and a corresponding Action Plan)

Resources:

The New Registrant requirements are your introduction to the ongoing mandatory reporting obligations for the QA Program, referred to as the “Professional Development Requirements.” All registrants are responsible for completing and submitting their Professional Development requirements biennially. As a 2020 registrant, this means your requirements will be due every even-numbered year going forward.

Your current Professional Development reporting cycle is considered to span from your date of registration in 2020 to November 30, 2022.

In order to demonstrate that you have met the minimum requirements by November 30, 2022, you will need to have submitted the following to the College:

  • At least 1 completed Self-Assessment
  • At least 1 Learning Plan (which includes at minimum one Goal with corresponding Action Plan and Reflection)
  • At least 1 Learning Record which documents engagement in 40 hours of learning activities for each two-year cycle
    • These hours MUST have occurred during the relevant reporting cycle
    • At least 1 of the activities must be experiential; at least 1 of the activities must be didactic

See the Professional Development Guide for more information about your ongoing requirements.

What are my New Registrant requirements?

PLEASE NOTE: Due to registrant management system upgrades, those who registered with CRPO on or after November 6, 2020 will no longer access their New Registrant tools via the QA portal. Rather, these users will download and save a fillable PDF form (or Word version) to complete their requirements. Their submission deadline will be 60 days after CRPO’s new system goes online in late January 2021. All registrants will be informed in mid-January regarding the new system.

These requirements give new registrants the opportunity to self-examine, reflect, set goals and think critically about their practice, and the on-going growth they hope and plan to achieve in their professional lives.

The New Registrant requirements are:

  • Completing a Self-Assessment
  • Beginning a Learning Plan (by documenting at least 1 professional development Goal and a corresponding Action Plan)

The New Registrant requirements are your introduction to the ongoing mandatory reporting obligations for the QA Program, referred to as the “Professional Development Requirements. All registrants are responsible for completing and submitting their Professional Development requirements every two years.

Check out the Professional Development Guide to learn more about your Professional Development Requirements.

Do I have to do Professional Development each year?

All registrants are expected to participate in, document and submit their Professional Development requirements to the College in a two-year-long “reporting cycle.”  Your submission deadline is based on your year of registration.

CRPO expects all registrants to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to professional growth and development so long as they practice the profession and they are registered with the College.

The Professional Development component of the QA Program provides a general framework that was designed to help registrants reflect on their practice, and consciously shape the course of their professional growth. The PD tools help registrants meet their self-reporting obligations. These tools also help CRPO meet its obligation to assure the public that registrants of the profession are working to maintain and enhance their competence.

With that in mind, registrants are encouraged to update their Professional Development tools regularly. The College expects all registrants to meet the minimum requirements (outlined in the Professional Development Guide) for each tool every two years (based on their year or registration) and submit those tools to the College via the QA Portal in advance of their submission deadline.

The singular exception to this obligation is for new registrants of the College: new registrants have special requirements that introduce them to the QA Program – these requirements are called the “new registrant requirements.”

What is my 40 hour requirement?

All registrants are required to engage in at least 40 hours of professional development learning activities during their two-year Professional Development reporting cycle.

Registrants demonstrate this learning requirement by either documenting their activities in the Learning Record tool on the QA Portal OR, for those who joined CRPO after November 6, 2020, by downloading the fillable PDF form and saving it in a personal portfolio.

The learning activities you document must:

  • Have occurred during the relevant Professional Development reporting cycle (activities which occurred prior to the reporting cycle or are recorded in anticipation of future completion will not be counted towards your minimum requirements); and
  • At least one of the activities you record during the reporting cycle must be didactic, and
  • At least one of the activities you record during the reporting cycle must be experiential.

It is recommended that you record activities in your Learning Record soon after you complete them. Doing this means you will have a nearly complete Record by your deadline and avoids the panic of trying to fill in two years of information just before the deadline!

If you are engaged in an activity that unfolds over a significant span of time (for example a semester-long course), you are welcome to include that in your Learning Record before it has ended, but only record the hours you’ve completed already (not the hours you expect to complete). Since you can edit entries made in the Learning Record, update the hours associated with that activity as often as you need to.

For more information about your 40-hour learning requirement please take the time to review the Learning Record portion of the Professional Development Guide.

My PD requirements are due, but it has been less than two years since I became registered – what do I need to submit?

Registrants are required to engage in at least 40 hours of learning activities over a period of two years (this is referred to as the reporting cycle). This requirement presumes that two years have passed between the date of initial registration and your November 30th PD deadline. However, a small number of registrants will find that the time between their date of initial registration and their November 30th deadline is shorter than two years. This subset of registrants is required to engage in “a reasonable proportion” of the 40 hours. The reasonable proportion will be calculated based on the total number of months the registrant has been registered (or the total number of months that have elapsed between one deadline and the next, if applicable). For example, a registrant who has been registered for 18 months (or ¾ of a two-year time span) would be required to engage in at least 30 hours of learning activities (which is ¾ of the 40-hour requirement).

Read more about reasonable proportionality in the Professional Development Guide.

Can the New Registrant requirements I completed count towards my Professional Development requirements?

Your New Registrant requirements are, by definition, a part of your Professional Development requirements! By fulfilling your New Registrant requirements, you are contributing to your Professional Development requirements.

Your New Registrants requirements due within 2 months of your date of registration UNLESS you registered with CRPO on or after November 6, 2020, in which case, your New Registrant requirements are due two months after CRPO’s revamped registrant management system goes online in late January, 2021. Your first Professional Development reporting cycle begins on your date of registration and ends November 30, two years from your year of registration.

Example: if your date of registration was January 1, 2018, your New Registrant requirements would have been due March 1, 2018. Your Professional Development reporting cycle would therefore have begun January 1, 2018 and ended November 30, 2020.

Please take the time to review the Professional Development Guide if you seek further clarification.

What professional development activities / continuing education credits can be documented towards my Learning Record requirements?

Registrants of the College are asked to rely on their professional judgment to select, and then participate in, learning activities that are credible, related to the practice of psychotherapy, and that will meet their individual learning needs. At present, the College does not require that registrant engage in “pre-approved” activities, and so it is expected that registrants would rely on their own prudence and judgment to invest their time and financial resources in learning activities that meet their individual learning needs.

Examples of experiential activities:

  • Peer consultation
  • Clinical supervision
  • Receiving personal psychotherapy

Examples of didactic activities:

  • Attending education/training programs or courses
  • Engaging in independent study/ self-guided learning
  • Writing for a scholarly publication (e.g. journals, textbooks, and other educational resources)

For a non-exhaustive list of examples of professional development activities that would be considered acceptable, please refer to page 6 of the Professional Development Guide.

Learning activities reported in the Learning Record must be:

  • Relevant to the practice of psychotherapy.
  • Credible and require some form of participation. Examples include: courses where a registrant must attend/participate in lectures, course readings, and evaluation; seminars or workshops, where a registrant  attends/participates in lectures, discussion groups or role playing; reading/study groups, where a registrant  must interact with learning materials and discuss the subject matter with others in the group; and so on. In the case of an independent study, participation may involve the reading of materials and engagement with other kinds of learning resources.
  • Verifiable where some form of documentation exists that enables a registrant to demonstrate that they have completed the activity, and the College, if needed, to verify that the activity occurred. Ideally, this would be a letter or certificate of completion which identifies: the activity, the organization’s contact information, the date or period in which the activity occurred, the duration of the activity, and the name of the participant. Where a registrant engages in independent study, s/he should maintain careful records of learning resources that were used.

Do I need to submit documents or evidence of participation along with my Learning Record before my submission deadline?

No. Registrants are expected to retain documentation (e.g. certificates of participation) that can verify your participation in learning activities in your own professional portfolio.

You are only required to provide documentary evidence of participation in the activities logged in your Learning Record if such evidence is requested by staff.

I was paid to teach or do other work related to psychotherapy – can that count towards my Learning Record requirements?

No.

Paid work does not qualify as a personal professional development activity. (In the same way that providing psychotherapy services to a client for a wage or fee is paid work, teaching programs, courses, workshops, seminars, conferences or webinars is NOT an activity undertaken for the express purpose of your professional growth and learning.)

If you refer to the tables of examples of learning activities on page 6 of the Professional Development guide, you will note that the “preparation for teaching programs, courses, workshops, seminars, conferences or webinars” does appear on the list of examples of professional development learning activities. You are welcome to include the preparatory time you spend researching and broadening your understanding of psychotherapy / psychotherapeutic practices and socio-cultural applicability/trends in your Learning Record.

I submitted my tools in error – they are incomplete and do not meet the minimum requirements for my reporting cycle. What do I do?

Although they remain visible on your QA Portal, submitted tool cannot be edited, or re-opened for the purpose of editing.

If you submitted an incomplete Self-Assessment, you will need to complete a new one. (You can copy and paste in any previously submitted Group A, B or C questions so long as they are still relevant to you/your practice.)

If you submitted an incomplete Learning Plan you will need to open a new one, populate it with any incomplete Goals / Action Plans and add the outstanding Reflections in order to demonstrate that you have met the minimum requirements.

If you submitted an incomplete Learning Record, you will need to open a new one and populate it with any entries that were incomplete from your previous submission. Please make every effort to submit complete entries (with all sections completed to the best of your ability).

You are welcome to submit as many iterations or version of tools during a reporting cycle as you need or see fit. There is no maximum requirement, only a minimum requirement (as outlined in the Professional Development Guide).

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