How to Prepare your Professional Development Plan for BSP Registration
Introduction
This article is specifically going to talk about my experience supporting prospective Behaviour Support Practitioners (BSPs) to prepare their Professional Development (PD) Plans for their registration application to the NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission. It can be difficult to understand what they’re looking for but over the years I’ve been able to see what’s accepted versus what’s pushed back, and almost all of our Supervisees receive no feedback about their PD Plans. Believe it or not, that’s not a bad thing here as it means it’s ‘passed’ and been considered acceptable.
So what is a PD Plan - more commonly called a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Plan - and what does it need to include?
A Professional Development (PD) Plan for BSP registration outlines the capabilities you need to develop, how you plan to develop them, and the timeframe you're working towards. For practitioners applying through the New Entry Level pathway, the plan is particularly important because it maps out how you'll develop towards the Core level of the Positive Behaviour Support Capability Framework. If you’re applying through the Self-Assessment pathway, this might be your plan to reach Core, Proficient, or other levels. It depends what level you’re submitting yourself as with endorsement from a Supervisor. If you’re not sure, ask your Supervisor for advice.
The aim isn't to demonstrate that you already know how to do everything. In fact, identifying your capability gaps is an important part of preparing the plan. You're showing that you've reflected on your current knowledge and skills and have a realistic plan for developing the capabilities you don't yet have.
Reviewing the PBS Capability Framework
Once you’ve worked out what level of capability you need to review, you can find it within the Self-Assessment Tool provided by the NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission. Or shameless plug - we have free downloadable copies of each level’s capabilities within the additional resources on our Member’s Site which is also free to join.
So using the example of a New Entry Level practitioner (since this is the majority of cases), you’d go to the Core level capabilities to start. There are quite a few capabilities to work through, so give yourself some time for this. My recommendation is to go through each of the 7 sections and to consider honestly if you understand what the capability is and whether you’ve actually got knowledge about or experience in this. There’s absolutely no shame in saying you don’t understand or you don’t think you can do it - you’ve never done this job before and it’s the whole point of preparing this PD Plan! It’s much better to identify a gap and fill it while you’re in your early career as a practitioner, than miss it and have it impact your practice - there’s honestly no better time than now.
As you work through the Framework, I also find it useful to ask myself whether the gap is primarily about knowledge or practical experience. Knowing how to explain something isn't necessarily the same as having had the opportunity to do it in practice. That distinction can help you choose a more meaningful development activity later — because some gaps might be addressed through reading or training, while others require observation, practice, feedback or supervision. Also, don’t panic if you’re confused by some of the jargon, it took me a while to make some of the connections too and I’ve been around since before this process first started! Your Supervisor can help you understand anything that doesn’t make sense.
A Simple Way to Review your Current Capabilities
When I'm supporting a prospective practitioner through this process, I recommend reviewing each capability within the Self-Assessment Tool itself and checking the answer you think fits you best right now:
Met — I understand this capability and can demonstrate that I already have the relevant knowledge or experience.
Developing — I have some knowledge or experience, but this is an area I still need to strengthen and/or this is something I can’t evidence right now.
Not Met — I don't yet have the knowledge or experience needed to demonstrate this capability.
The aim isn't to get as many capabilities into “Met” as possible. It's to create an honest picture of where you're starting from so that your PD Plan can actually target the areas where development is needed. Once you’ve gone through each capability, you can now get started on this.
Writing your PD Plan
So now you’re finally ready to get started.
If a template hasn’t been provided to you from your organisation or your Supervisor, you need to decide which template you’d like to use. There’s the NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission version within the Self-Assessment Resource Guide, or if you like, you can use our template. It’s found free within our PBS Practitioner Resources for download.
The Commission’s template and ours start off the same. You need to explain who you are and provide dates this plan will be applicable. Then it’s time to focus on some of the strengths you might’ve identified as you were going through the capabilities. Was there an area of knowledge or skill that you felt more confident in? Maybe an area where you were able to tick most of the capabilities as met? If so, these are likely to be the strengths you have coming in as a new practitioner and you can detail these in this section.
Our template also wants to identify whether you have any special areas of knowledge or experience outside of the capabilities, and particular areas that interest you. This could be where you express your competency in supporting neurodiverse youth or training experience as a school teacher. For interests, has something in particular caught your attention and you want to focus on it? Maybe you’d like to work with particular communities or delve deeper into a particular diagnosis. Taking even a short time to reflect on these things can help you stay more focused on the kind of PBS Practitioner you want to become and the kind of people you aim to support. Though don’t stress if you don’t have any special areas yet; it takes time for some people.
After this point, our template sets out each of the 7 capability sections that Core and Proficient both follow. This makes it easier to outline which capabilities you plan to target and show that you’ve reviewed the PBS Capability Framework to complete this.
So at this point while you’re staring at the next blank pages of the plan, I would recommend selecting any capability from your Self-Assessment Tool review which you’ve marked as ‘Not Met’ and adding it as a capability to target under the right section, e.g. Interim Response. If you didn’t have any ‘Not Met’, perhaps you’d like to further explore those you marked as ‘Developing’. It’s a good idea to be specific about the capability too; you can even use the wording straight from the Framework.
Then after you’ve added all the capabilities in, you need to explain how you’re going to develop them. This can be one of the trickiest parts of preparing a New Entry Level PD Plan because you're being asked to identify meaningful development activities for work you may never have actually done before, just like having to write an essay for a class before the semester has even started!
Choosing How you'll Develop the Capability
This is where the distinction we made earlier between knowledge and skill/experience becomes useful. The development activity you choose should actually match the gap you've identified.
If your gap is primarily knowledge, you might develop it through reading guidance, completing training, discussing the topic in supervision or reviewing relevant legislation and resources.
If your gap is primarily practical skill or experience, completing another online module may not be enough. You might need opportunities to observe someone else, practise the skill yourself, receive feedback on your work, discuss your reasoning in supervision, or demonstrate the capability through your work with participants.
I try to avoid adding professional development activities simply because they sound relevant. The question I ask is: if I complete this activity, will it actually help me develop the capability I've identified, or am I just trying to get this ticked off? For example, if you've identified a gap in functional behaviour assessment, reading about functional assessment might help build your knowledge — but it won't necessarily demonstrate that you can conduct one. Your development plan might therefore include reviewing guidance and training first, followed by conducting assessment activities in practice, discussing your interpretation in supervision, and receiving feedback on your written functional assessment.
To help you along the way, some places I’d recommend you get started:
Go through the NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission website, focusing on the Behaviour Support and Restrictive Practice webpages
Find the applicable State/Territory and Federal legislation about Restrictive Practice and Behaviour Support
State/Territory Guardianship websites
Deciding with Support training and resources
The Right Direction resources
Promoting Positive Behaviour Support Practice training
Supporting Effective Commission training modules from the NDIS Commission
NDS’ Zero Tolerance Framework - I recommend Foundations of PBS, Restrictive Practice, and Trauma-Informed Care
There’s honestly heaps of information and resources out there if you have a look around and use the right keywords, though of course it can feel like wandering around in the dark trying to find the right light switch.
The last part of this PD Plan is choosing a time frame for when you plan to have achieved the capability. Thankfully, the Self-Assessment Tool mostly goes in the same order as the PBS process itself - from when you start the Interim Response (0-1 months), then Functional Assessment (3-5 months), Planning (5-6 months), then Implementation and Know It Works (7 months+). Restrictive Practice is trickier as it’s dependent on your involvement in working with a participant where this is occurring. Lastly, Professional Development is something which you’ve been working towards since you signed with a Supervisor and started this plan, so arguably one of the easiest sections to achieve earlier.
Just make sure to give yourself leeway so you have time to seek employment and actually start working with participants; this might not happen straight away so take the pressure off. The referral and onboarding process itself can take a few weeks too, so add time for that as well.
How will you Evidence your Development?
Identifying a development activity is only part of the process. It's also worth thinking about how you'll know — and demonstrate — that you've actually developed the capability. The Commission's template includes space to record the outcome or evidence of your progress within the PD Plan itself. Personally, I prefer to keep a separate Professional Development Log or Record because it gives me more room to document what was completed, reflect on what was learned, and consider what evidence demonstrates the practitioner's developing capability. If this idea sounds interesting to you, have a look at our free Professional Development Record.
Evidence will look different depending on the capability you're working towards. It might include completed training, supervision discussions, observations, assessments or reports you've prepared, feedback on your work, implementation activities, or reflection on how you've applied new knowledge in practice.
The important distinction for me is that completing a development activity isn't necessarily the same thing as developing the capability. Finishing a training module tells us that you completed the training; we may still need to consider how you've understood, applied or demonstrated that learning in your practice. This is something I'd recommend reviewing regularly with your Supervisor. Together, you can look at the evidence you've gathered, reflect on your progress and decide whether the capability has been sufficiently developed or whether there's still more work to do.
Okay, you’re finished your PD Plan - now what?
You and your Supervisor both need to sign off on it. Once you’re ready, send it to them for review and signing. They might come back to you first with some tips to consider; I often suggest resources, training, or sources of future evidence that I know will help my Supervisee.
When the plan is signed by both of you, it’s ready to go as part of your BSP registration application - Congratulations, another step has been made towards your registration! Though, please remember that your PD Plan isn't really finished once it's signed. Think of this as your starting point. As you begin working with participants, you'll gain experience, discover new development needs and collect evidence of capabilities that previously sat in your ‘Developing’ or ‘Not Met’ categories.
This is why I recommend revisiting the plan with your Supervisor rather than treating it as a document you prepare for registration and then forget about. It should help guide your supervision, professional development and reflection as your practice develops.
Need Help Working Through your PD Plan?
Preparing your first PD Plan can feel difficult when you're being asked to identify how you'll develop capabilities for a role you likely haven’t started yet.
This is also something you don't necessarily need to work through alone. A Supervisor can help you understand unfamiliar capabilities, think critically about your current strengths and development needs, identify meaningful learning opportunities, and review the evidence you gather as your practice develops.
If you're preparing for BSP registration and would like to talk through what you need to get started, you can book a free 20-minute chat with me to ask questions and see whether supervision might be helpful for you.
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