Professional Development Approach
is a special collaborative learning approach within the context of professional practitioners work that stimulates structured and targeted upgrading of professionals who at the same time have various active tasks in relation to the same service users
The Professional Development Approach is a special collaborative learning approach within the context of professional practitioners work practice created by Benedicte Schilling, Schilling CTS, Ltd.
In many cases the Professional Developmental Approach can replace the more traditional forms of supervision (internal or using and external supervisor), team consultation, case conferences and training.
This format can also be applied if your organization needs help due to legal or formal complaints regarding the quality of your existing professional service and you as a manager require a structured, goal-directed specific format to help you get your services to produce outcomes to a standard expected by your external supervisory boards etc.
What does the Profession Development Approach do?
The Professional Development Approach is a special collaborative learning approach within the context of work practice that targets the upgrading of a professional practitioner or a network of professionals’ practice skills for the purpose of
► improving work with users of the professional practitioner’s specific service and to ensure that
► the necessary skills and approaches are at all times present to solve the specific task.
The Professional Development Approach forms the basis of the continuous professional progress of the individual professional practitioner and/or the professional multi-disciplinary team that serves the needs of a particular case and the broader ongoing development of the professionals’ performance, confidence, resilience, creativity, well-being and enjoyment of their work.
The Professional Development Approach is intended
► to create/ensure ongoing learning and
► to ensure professional performance, resilience, creativity, well/being and enjoyment for all professionals who are in the team working with a service user/family.
In this learning community, work is done with the professional practitioners’ chosen areas of professional development in the context of working with a particular service user/family.
The focus is typically:
• the dynamics, coordination and interaction between the service user/family and professional practitioner
• the professional practitioner’s position, individual skills and competencies.
We are invited by the case and the task, to investigate which areas of practice the professional practitioner should focus on i.e. professional skills, positions and creativity, in order to improve their practice and at thereby benefit the work done with this particular service user/family.
The goal is that by inspiring each other through the collaborative sharing of ideas, techniques, skills and positions and as a professional community learning together, we will be able to meet the challenges and solve the tasks that the service user/family present us with.
The professional Development Approach is developed particularly for use within the public services as social services, child and family services, mental health services, adult social services and health services.
The Approach can also be applied to private and charity services offering various forms of psychological, psycho-therapeutic, counselling and supportive services to people in need,
The Approach is designed to assist managers and individual professional practitioners as well as multi-disciplinary teams who provide services to the public who are concerned that they reach the highest standards of quality of professional service and who expect the highest professional standards of their employees and wish to work in the most cost-efficient way for the public service user.
We always contract directly with management and design the specific Professional Developmental Approach process to fit the specific needs of an organization or service provider.
Definition of Professional Development Approach
Professional Development Approach is a special collaborative learning approach. Communal learning involves all the professionals actively engaged in a specific case. This is a multi-disciplinary learning community where everyone with tasks related to the specific case are learning together to stimulate and share applicable know-how and ideas and relevant practices with the aim of improving outcomes for the case as a collective.
Professional Development Approach at its core ensures that the professional/professional team over the course of a case is continually upgrading and refining their skills in order to maintain a flexible and dynamic position that ensures the best possible outcomes for that particular case.
The Professional Development Approach forms the basis for the continuous professional progress of the individual professional practitioner and/or the professional multi-disciplinary team that serves the activity around a particular case and the broader ongoing development of the professional practitioners’ performance, confidence, resilience, creativity, well-being and enjoyment of their work.
Benedicte Schilling, 2015