Continuing Professional Development Policy (CPD)

Any professional seeking to develop a fulfilling career as an Environmental Health Practitioner (EHP) should be actively considering how they demonstrate their skills and competence to current and future employers, clients, other professionals, and the community at large. It is for these reasons that Environmental Health Australia (EHA) has developed the CEHP/CEHT Scheme for EHPs.

CPD is defined as “the systematic maintenance, improvement and broadening of knowledge and skill, and the development of personal qualities necessary for the competent execution of professional and technical duties throughout a professional’s working life”.

CPD is about planned self-development which embraces both personal and professional goals and which, in general, is concerned with improving performance. A personal development plan is a mechanism by which needs for enhanced skills and knowledge can be identified and then pursued over the short, medium and longer term thereby creating a framework for achieving satisfaction, career progression and advancing practitioner skills.

CPD is important as EHPs can no longer rely on their initial qualifications to ensure they have the skills, knowledge and practices to tackle the environmental health challenges posed by local and global environmental changes, technological and social change, community expectations and government policy directions. EHPs can no longer rely on employers to provide everything required to develop skills and experience and must take individual responsibility for lifelong learning, continuing development and career progression. CPD is an acknowledgement of, and commitment to, professionalism.

CPD is a free program open to all EHA Members. To join the CPD please click here to download your registration form and click here to download the CPD Activity Record (Excel Spreadsheet) or click here for the PDF version.

CPD Policy

EHA believes that it is vital that all members remain current in their area of environmental health practice through a system of Continuing Professional Development which builds on, and goes beyond, initial qualifications and training.

To this end EHA has established a CPD Scheme to ensure members:

• maintain professional competence in their chosen environmental health field or practice;
• update existing knowledge and skills; and
• attain new or additional knowledge and skills.

The CPD Scheme operates over a two year period beginning 1 July 2008 and, in which, participants are required to earn a total of 60 CPD points as follows:

Table 1               CPD Requirements

These points can be earned by undertaking a range of CPD activities including attendance at conferences, seminars and training courses, involvement in the management activities of EHA or other professional bodies, post-graduate studies, publication or presentation of papers, participation in mentoring schemes, and completion of a proposed CPD self-assessment scheme run in conjunction with the Environmental Health Journal.

The CPD point allocation (Table 2) aims to encourage active involvement in on-going training activities, peer-review (through publication and presentation of research/ practice initiatives) and participation in professional activities. It also recognises that professional development/training can be undertaken in a wide range of areas including technical and management topics, and personal development activities. The policy is also designed to allow for successful participation by those persons who may have limited access to conferences/training courses due to geographical or employer restrictions.

CPD participants are required to maintain a log book (Appendix 1) that is submitted to the EHA Branch office at the completion of their 2-year cycle. A minimum of 10% of log books will be audited by EHA annually to ensure that participants are achieving the required standard of commitment to CPD. Participants completing the first year of the 2-year cycle of CPD will be issued with a Continuing Professional Development Certificate and thereafter at the completion of the first year in each subsequent CPD cycle.

Table 2               Points Allocation for Specific CPD Activities

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