1) Understand principles of professional development.
1.1 Explain the importance of continually improving knowledge and practice.
It is very important to continually improve knowledge and practice, as it will have a positive effect both professionally and personally. As best practice changes and is proved often, it is important to keep up to date to maintain an affective care setting and provide the best possible quality of care to the service users. Improving knowledge and practice not only sets a good role model for the staff team, but it allows you to put that knowledge into practice, and to continue to improve and develop the care setting you are involved in.
1.2 Analyse potential barriers to professional development.
There are many potential barriers when aiming to achieve professional development, these barriers can potentially be professional or personal, in some cases, a mixture of both. Personal barriers to professional development can include, financial, time pressures (family or other commitments), emotionally, social or intellectual. Some of the professional barriers can include, organisational barriers, work pressure and work overload. These barriers can be overcome in many ways, which can include, talking to management about this, or talking to someone you trust, it can be delegating tasks to take some of the work load of yourself, it can be organising things into priority and working through them in your own pace therefore decreasing chance of getting stressed and overloaded, and it can also be asking for more training, as more knowledge in less confident areas may allow someone to feel more comfortable therefore minimise barriers to professional development.
1.3 Compare the use of different sources and systems of support for professional development.
There are different sources and systems for professional development, individuals may find some sources and systems better than others, but it...