Title: Writing for your portfolio: Using evidence for career, competence and credit
1Writing for your portfolio Using evidence for
career, competence and credit
- Stuart Cable
- scable_at_qmu.ac.uk
2What is a portfolio?
- ...private collection of evidence which
demonstrates the continuing acquisition of
skills, knowledge, attitudes, understanding and
achievement ...retrospective and prospective as
well as reflecting the current stage of
development and activity of the individual.
3 and a profile is?
- A profile is constructed from evidence 'selected
from the personal portfolio for a particular
purpose and for the attention of a particular
audience.' - Consequently a profile is a more public document
and issues of confidentiality, accountability and
the moral and ethical decisions about selection
and preparation of material are important.
4 Portfolio development
5Writing for an audience
- Whos your audience
- Academic
- Professional
- Formal
- Informal
- Colleagues, manager, professional body, course
tutor, self
6How succinctly can you write?
- Exercise Try to edit the text below to see by
how much you can reduce the wordage whilst
retaining the meaning - Generally it is the case that mental health care
for older adults in secondary services is, in the
main, organised around a cut-off age of 65 years
to define later life. As a consequence, this has
meant that people diagnosed before the age of 65
years are transferred to another service on the
date of their 65th birthday. On the whole this
mainly affects those people who experience
illnesses such as the following schizophrenia,
anxiety disorders and clinical depression. The
prevalence of clinical depression in the over-65s
is estimated to be somewhere in the region of 15
per cent or higher.
7Cut out extra words
- Edited example
- Generally it is the case that mental health
care for older adults in secondary services is,
in the main, organised around a cut-off age of
65 years to define later life. As a
consequence, this has meant that people
diagnosed before the age of 65 years are
transferred to another service on the date of
their 65th birthday. On the whole this mainly
affects those people who experience illnesses
such as the following schizophrenia, anxiety
disorders and clinical depression. The prevalence
of clinical depression in the over-65s is
estimated to be somewhere in the region of 15
per cent or higher.
8Working with evidence
Find it keep everything (electronic storage
means allows much material in little space) Match
it think about purpose (electronic options
allow drag and drop or cut and paste) Present
it quality not quantity here linking
narratives help
9Writing a narrative
- Ensure you provide a clear convincing discussion
of evidence - Use different pieces of evidence to persuade your
jury - Link it to competencies, outcomes or objectives
e.g. code individual pieces of evidence or create
an evidence grid to clarify for readers the link
between outcomes and evidence.
10Example of a narrative
- Learning Outcome Work both autonomously and as a
member of a variety of community and social care
teams negotiating their own responsibilities as
the situation, tasks and composition of the teams
require. - My activity in the general practice setting is
across a wide variety of health and disease
issues. I specialise in asthma care, diabetes
care, travel health, health promotion and health
assessment techniques to name but a few. My
activity can be autonomous when dealing, for
example, with an individual who requires
assessment, diagnosis, treatment and education
about asthma, or can result in collaboration with
a variety of healthcare teams when dealing, for
example, with a person who lives with
insulin-dependent diabetes. - Examples of my liaison with other members of the
healthcare team include - Liaison with GPs practice staff chiropodist
local opticians diabetes nurse specialist
district nurses, and nurses in nursing homes to
develop diabetes care in our area. The joint
input of this group to our diabetes protocol (17)
can be seen in the signatories at the end of the
protocol, which can be found in the evidence
section of this portfolio. - Liaison with dieticians to develop the lipid
protocol (22, 23) and the services for people in
our practice population. - Development of the over 75s health check protocol
(14) which brings together the health-visiting
team, practice staff and GPs. - Provision of Health Fairs (27) for local school
children and members of the local community.
Letters of referral to the local diabetologists,
chiropodists, respiratory specialist nurses,
dieticians and others (anonymised). - Provision of women's health services at the
practice involves working autonomously when I
carry out screening for cervical cytology and
provide advice about breast awareness and in a
team as the female GP that I work with has
specialist knowledge in women's health and,
therefore, the more complex patients are referred
on to her and/or we address the problem together. - All of the above are examples of my present
practice. I work autonomously in some situations
and as a member of a team in many more
situations. This is underpinned by the certified
learning outlined above, however, as can be seen
from my CV I have experience of working in the
community as a health visitor assistant and as a
community sister for the hospice. I also had
experience of the hospice at home service during
my time in oncology in the United States. This
past experience has all helped to inform my
awareness of community teams and their importance
in the delivery of health care services to our
practice population.
11Example of an evidence matrix
12Evidence quality check
- Validity relevant evidence?
- Sufficiency - enough evidence?
- Currency - up-to-date evidence?
- Authenticity - your evidence?
13Uses for your portfolio evidence
- Manager for appraisal interview
- Coach/ supervisor for evaluation of progress
- Assessor for accreditation of new competencies
- To record CPD activities for keeping in good
standing and professional accreditation - Colleagues for discussion when reflecting on own
practice or seeking testimonials - To boost self-esteem
14KSF Profile
- Common descriptions of knowledge and skills that
need to be applied in the NHS - Evidence against dimensions of practice
- 6 core dimensions
- 25 specific dimensions in four groups (Care - 9,
Facilities - 4, Information 3, General - 9 - Annual development reviews/ Personal development
plan
Dimension 1 Descriptor Level 4 Develop and
maintain communication with people on complex
matters, issues and ideas and/or in complex
situations
What evidence?
15PREP profile
- Demonstration of competence or fitness to
practice - Maintenance of registration
- Nature, description and outcome of learning
activities
16CATS APL/APEL and all that!
- Recognises value of past learning
- Reduced duplication of effort,
- but, requires evidence!
17Demonstrating competences
- RCN Core Career and Competency Framework enables
- identification and planning of competence
development as progress through career, - achievement of multiple agendas within one
portfolio, e.g., to demonstrate evidence of - Competence at four different levels in general
and specialist areas of nursing Competent Nurse,
Experienced Nurse, Senior Practitioner, and
Consultant Nurse) - Readiness to progress to the next career level
using, for example, tools that help nurses to
become professionally accredited - Achievement of the Knowledge and Skills
Framework in relation to own job profile/post
outline pay band.
18RCN Core Nursing Competence
COMPETENT NURSE
KSF Dimension Core 1. COMMUNICATION Level 3
Develop and maintain communication with people
about difficult matters and/or in difficult
situations
Skills for Health Competences
Areas of application to nursing practice with
examples (core)
Indicators
HSC31 Promote communication for and about
individuals
- a) Communicates effectively and in appropriate
manner with - - patients, those important to patients, users.
- - the nursing team
- - the interdisciplinary team i.e., social
workers, doctors, bed managers, modern matrons,
allied health professionals, administrative
staff, housekeeping staff other health care
professionals
a a). identifies the range of people likely to
be involved in the communication, any potential
communication differences and relevant contextual
factors
19Vocational Qualifications (N/SVQ)
- Nationally recognised qualifications
- Show that you are competent at your job
- Meet national occupational standards
- Units of competence are achieved through
assessment in your workplace - Units are collected together to form a National
Vocational Qualification - Qualifications are awarded at different levels
dependent on the job you do - Achieved through building portfolio of evidence
20VQ Occupational Health and Safety
- Examples of evidence that may be used in a
portfolio include the following - Review and implementation of health and safety
policies. - Review and implementation of emergency
procedures. - Training in relation to health and safety, e.g.
induction training. - Active monitoring, e.g. inspections, safety tours
and surveys. - Data analysis, e.g. near-miss analysis.
- Safety meetings and the decision making process.
- Risk assessments, both qualitative and
quantitative
21For portfolio development and gathering evidence
visit
-
- www.rcn.org.uk/learningzone
- and let me know what you think of this session
- stuart.cable_at_qmu.ac.uk