Personal Development Plan (PDP) for a mental health nurse practitioner

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie
Published: 3rd April 2017

1.  Introduction

In accordance with (Lu, 2015), personal development plan is an important aspects of self-growth. This because it helps to highlight individual weaknesses and threats to personal growth; and identify strengths that one can adopt to enhance overall opportunities and growth (Beausaert, Segers, van der Rijt, & Gijselaers, 2011). In view of the above understanding, this paper is an individual development plan designed to access the author’s weaknesses and threats, and highlight strengths and opportunities for continued growth as a professional nurse. I want to be a professional mental health nurse and this department requires a lot of emotional intelligence and control (CORU Social Workers Registration Board, 2016). Thus, it further validates the need to have a personal development plan (CORU Social Workers Registration Board, 2016).

2.  Literature review

In line with NMBA’s code of professional conduct for nurses in Australia, “Nurses respect the dignity, culture, ethnicity, values and beliefs of people receiving care and treatment, and of their colleagues; Nurses promote and preserve the trust and privilege inherent in the relationship between nurses and people receiving care; and Nurses maintain and build on the community’s trust and confidence in the nursing profession (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2008). As such, self-reflection is important for nurses in Australia as it will help them operate in line with the professional code of conduct, promote patients health care, and improve communities trust for the nursing profession.

Personal development plan can be referenced to different concepts such as portfolio, continuing professional or personal development plant, personal professional profile or logbook. Portfolio assessment and personal or professional development plan are two of the most used terms. Both in corporate and individual world, it is important to have a tool for accountability and learning (CORU Social Workers Registration Board, 2013). Additionally, such tool can be used to keep a record of skills, knowledge, attitude, achievements, and understanding acquired (CORU Social Workers Registration Board, 2016), and it helps to assess the overall competence of the employee (Clark, 2016). It is a clear demonstration of development and continued acquisition in relation to any given professional. Basically, personal development plan can be defined as a tool:

·         Used to generate overview of an employee’s competence based on past experience and the desired competence the employee aims to attain in the future (CULLEN & O’GRADY, 2016);

·         That is normally composed by the employee based on personal experience, although there is a fixed model that can be adopted in the course of such development (David, 2011);

·         Used as the basis for structuring conversation with a supervisor or coach, who provides necessary feedbacks and formulate improvement stimulations in relation to the employee’s reflection (Department of Children and Youth Affairs, 2014); and

·         Used in different decision making, from planning an individual training program to promotion related decisions with respect to a given employee (Iloka, 2014).

Evidently, personal development plan is important in all professions. This is because it helps the professional to assess present competence and determine best way to improve in the future (Tracey, 2011). Effectively, it helps the user to become better in his or her profession, irrespective of the profession.

3.  SWOT analysis

This is an acronym for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat. It is used to analyze the competence level of an individual or a corporation by identifying areas of weakness and threats to positive performance (Martin, 2015). Thus, it is adopted in this case to identify my weakness and threats to personal growth.

3.1.           Strength

        I.            I am very attentive, and I find it easy to retain a vast volume of information. As a nurse, this is unique because it will help to address health issues passed on from patients easily.

      II.            I value facts. When information are passed, I try my best to investigate more in order to ensure such information has been tried and in the past. This is vital in evidence based practice within the nursing world.

    III.            I take corrections and I am open to learn new things. I don’t consider myself as being better than anybody and I am always willing to learn from people irrespective of differences in terms of profession or life.

3.2.           Weakness

        I.            I am too emotional. When hurt, I tend to carry the pain longer than should. This is a weakness as it can hinder faster recovery and overall commitment level.

      II.            I don’t like working in a team. I am very individualistic and prefer being assigned to an independent role. Although this can bring out the best in me, it does have the disadvantage of limiting my performance in a team.

    III.            I am very conservative and tend to retain information within my own cycle. This is a weakness because it limits the ability to lay productive impact on other people by sharing what I know.

3.3.           Opportunity

        I.            As a nursing student, I am opportune to interact with people from different fields and category of life. Thus, it will present be with opportunity to improve on my information sharing ability and also to enhance my overall potential of working in a team.

      II.            As someone who is retentive, I have the opportunity of impact on people’s performance by sharing with them what I have learnt.

    III.            I am open to learn new things and easily take corrections. This presents me with the opportunity to improve on my competence by acquiring new skills and advancing on existing ones. This is very significant in the nursing profession.

3.4.                       Threats

        I.      Due to huge academic workload and other social aspects of my life, I have limited time to dedicate for learning process. This is a threat to my development plan because time is necessary to ensure that I attain desired goals from the development process.

      II.      I also lack necessary resources such as reading materials and practical tools. This can hinder my overall development outcome.

    III.      Finally, I have discovered that some of the development process will require substantial financial investment and this does pose as a threat to my overall development process.

4.  Discussion of Personal Development Plan

Desired outcome	Development process	Requirements	Time required
Improve communication and information sharing. This will help me to learn more and provide necessary support to my colleagues.	I will need to improve on how I associated with people as well as the degree of trust I establish in existing relationships.	-          Textbooks on communication and team works. -          Join social clubs in the university.	3 – 6 months.
Increase my willingness to work in a team. This will help to improve my overall performance in a team.	I want to increase my ability to work in a team as this is crucial in the nursing profession.	-          Textbooks on team performance. -          Make more friends and try to socialize the more. -          Join social clubs in the university	6-12 months
Reduce level of emotional attachment to offences people cause me. This will help me move on in life and become stronger emotionally.	I want to reduce how I attach certain actions of people towards myself by learning to forgive and move on in life.	-          Textbooks on emotional intelligence. -          Associate more with people that are supportive.	1-3 months
I want to become a professional nurse that the world can rely on in the mental health department.	I will need to allocate more time and resources towards enhancing my overall professional level and learning process.	-          Put more interest on my profession and future. -          Attend classes regularly and ask questions in areas am confused. -          Engage in essential practical activities.	This will be continuous learning throughout my professional life.

5.  Conclusion and Recommendations

In conclusion, development plan is crucial in all professions (Quast, 2013). I have successfully adopted it to understand my weaknesses and threats to growth. Such an understanding has helped me to develop a proper plan for continued learning and improvement in my profession. I desire to become the best in my profession and I am deeply motivated towards helping mentally ill patients. Thus, this plan will help me improve on my overall professional performance.

In order to ensure that I attain my desired goal from this play, I recommend that my lecturers and colleagues should help me in any areas they can. For instance, my lecturers can help me improve on collaborative desires and team work by asking me questions in class and assigning me to teams made of social people. Overall, I will do what is right within my own sphere to ensure that I attain the desired goal. I will also adopt necessary evaluation models to monitor my improvement throughout the development process (Quast, 2013).

References

Beausaert, S., Segers, M., van der Rijt, J., & Gijselaers, W. (2011). The use of Personal Development Plans in the workplace: A literature review. In P. van den Bossche, W. Gijselaers, & R. Milter (Eds.), Buil ding learning experiences in a changing world. Advances in Business Education and Training III, 235-265.

Clark, D. (2016, 1 7). Plan Your Professional Development for the Year. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2016/01/plan-your-professional-development-for-the-year

CORU Social Workers Registration Board. (2013). Framework for Registration Boards Continuing Professional Development Standard and Requirements. Retrieved from CORU Health and Social Care Professionals Council: www.coru.ie.

CORU Social Workers Registration Board. (2016, 1 15). Criteria and Standards of Proficiency for Social Work Education and Training Programmes. Retrieved from CORU Social Workers Registration Board: www.iasw.ie/attachments/Criteria_and_Standards_for_Social_Worker_web_version_03022014.pdf

CULLEN, C., & O’GRADY, D. (2016). National Strategy for Continuing Professional Development. Retrieved from Tusla: http://www.tusla.ie/uploads/content/3529_Tulsa_NSCPD_lr.pdf

David, B. (2011). The Personal Development Planning Cycle. Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine, 177-182.

Department of Children and Youth Affairs. (2014). Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures,The national policy framework for children and young people 2014–2020. Dublin: Government Publication. Retrieved from Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

Iloka, B. C. (2014, 9 28). Leadership development portfolio: a personal reveiw. Retrieved from Benneth Chiemelie Iloka's Blog: http://ilokabenneth.blogspot.com.ng/2014/09/leadership-development-portfolio.html

Lu, E. (2015, 1 13). How to Create a Personal Development Plan. Retrieved from Mind of Winner: http://www.mindofwinner.com/create-personal-development-plan/

Martin, M. (2015, 11 25). Conducting a Personal SWOT Analysis for Your Career. Retrieved from Business News Daily: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5543-personal-swot-analysis.html

Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. (2008). Finding the research for evidence-based practice - PART ONE - The development of EBP. . Retrieved from Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia: Rethttp://www.nursingtimes.net/clinical-archive/leadership/finding-the-research-for-evidence-based-practice-part

Quast, L. (2013, 5 15). How To Conduct A Personal SWOT Analysis. Retrieved from Forbes News: http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaquast/2013/04/15/how-to-conduct-a-personal-s-w-o-t-analysis/#25f1e8586047

Tracey, C. L. (2011). Conducting an Effective Needs Assessment. Professional Safety, 28.