Planning & executing Continuing Ed Activities
It's essential for the CE Coordinator participate in planning meetings where CE will be offered - it's much easier to ensure that speakers, panels, presentations, etc., fit the requirements at the planning stage. Follow the California Psychological Association Office of Professional Development's criteria, outlined in their Criteria Manual and Application Guide.
Note: while the OPD doesn't require that a CE Coordinator, aka "program administrator", be a psychologist, it does require that at least one psychologist be involved and have direct input during all stages of planning any CE activity. The Coordinator could hold any license, or not be a licensed MH professional at all.
We use the OPC criteria for CE activities, as the BBS will accept CE from CPA-OPD approved providers and the BRN indicates it will as well, if the CE activity's content matches their guidelines, which include "therapeutic interpersonal relationship skills".
CE Coordinator responsibilities
Note: while the OPD doesn't require that a CE Coordinator, aka "program administrator", be a psychologist, it does require that at least one psychologist be involved and have direct input during all stages of planning any CE activity. The Coordinator could hold any license, or not be a licensed MH professional at all.
We use the OPC criteria for CE activities, as the BBS will accept CE from CPA-OPD approved providers and the BRN indicates it will as well, if the CE activity's content matches their guidelines, which include "therapeutic interpersonal relationship skills".
CE Coordinator responsibilities
- Way ahead of time:
- Familiarize yourself with the OPD Criteria. Expect it to feel picky. It is, but in a good way.
- Participate in planning the planning of CE programs sponsored by MHWA. Determine that all presentations with CE credit do, in fact, meet criteria.
- Once dates, topics and presentors are chosen:
- Ensure any announcements, beyond a 'save the date', any registration forms (paper or online) or anything someone might use to decide whether or not to attend a particular CE event contain the information specified in 'Focus Area G: Promotion and Advertising' of the Criteria Manual.
- coordinate with the Webmaster and Secretary to review and okay content before it's sent out or posted on the website
- All presenters need to provide you the same info you see on any CE announcement. It's helpful to specify a date, in order to get the info needed in plenty of time to promote the training.
- A brief bio that indicates why/how they're qualified to present on their topic
- Current CV
- Brief description of their presentation, including level for intended audience (introductory, intermediate, advanced for licensed (pre-licensed) mental health clinicians), to be used on the website, registration form and archived
- A set of measurable, participant-focused learning objectives (one page summary pdf available here).
- Having fewer attainable outcomes is better than a long list of aspirational objectives - 3 objectives is plenty for presentations running 1.5 to 3 hours
- Objectives are used for the course evaluation form (copy/paste!)
- Confirm those objectives are written in terms consistent with the requirements of the American Psychological Association's Standards and Guidelines for Continuing Education (excerpted below).
- If a presenter provides objectives that don't meet these criteria, you have the choice of requesting a revision, or, of rewriting them yourself.
- Don't be shy - figure that anyone who hasn't done a lot of presentations for psychologists may not be familiar with writing participant-focused 'observable and measurable' objectives
- Give a copy of the Standards, or the one page summary linked above, as needed
- If a presenter provides objectives that don't meet these criteria, you have the choice of requesting a revision, or, of rewriting them yourself.
- If the presenter is willing, a copy of any handout for participants - this can be sent out prior to the event for participants to print out as desired
- Ensure any announcements, beyond a 'save the date', any registration forms (paper or online) or anything someone might use to decide whether or not to attend a particular CE event contain the information specified in 'Focus Area G: Promotion and Advertising' of the Criteria Manual.
- Several weeks prior to the meeting:
- Prepare the paperwork! Each separate CE event at meetings or conferences will need:
- Attendance log. The same log form can be used for all boards as well as non-CE participants, but you need to ensure that participants receiving CE sign in and out, noting the time they arrived and left
- Individual Course Evaluation forms
- CE certificates
- Course summary forms
- Print, or make arrangements for printing everything on site. Check with the Treasurer as to how many people have pre-registered and with the conference host as to how many may attend from the host college. Round up a bit for conference evaluations; reminder - CE certificate forms are set up 2 per page.
- Identify who will be responsible for supervising continuing education sign-in/sign-outs and collecting completed course evaluations
- someone (preferably not you) needs to be the "Course Eval Police", insisting that participants provide a completed eval form and sign-out prior to getting their CE certificate
- ideally, support staff from the host college will be able to help
- Prepare the paperwork! Each separate CE event at meetings or conferences will need:
- After the meeting:
- Summarize the results of only the psychologists' course eval forms, using one Course Summary form per presentation. Tip - consider asking whomever is staffing the registration table to assist by calculating the mean of the responses to each of the learning objectives (2 versions: psychologists only and all participants)
- Send a summary (estimates okay) of all evals to the E-Board, key comments included
- Email the Summary form(s) to the OPD ([email protected]), along with copies of all "advertising", i.e., copy of the registration form, link to the relevant pages on MHWA's website) and a blank course evaluation form within 30 days of the event (mark your calendar). Contact info for the CPA Office of Professional Development here. A extension may be requested ahead of time if need arises, e.g., big conference, numerous presentations.
- Summarize the results of only the psychologists' course eval forms, using one Course Summary form per presentation. Tip - consider asking whomever is staffing the registration table to assist by calculating the mean of the responses to each of the learning objectives (2 versions: psychologists only and all participants)
- Upload copies of all forms, including scanned copies (batch 'em) of the completed individual course evals and the attendance logs, to our CE Records Archive. Save everything - CE certificates, attendance log, a copy of the registration form, presenter CVs, everything. File hard copies in your office and save a back-up of all forms, pdf, etc. etc., on your computer.
- Ta-da! You're done! Until next time....
From Focus Area G: Promotion & Advertising
OPD CE Provider Criteria Manual & Application Guide G. 1. Providers must have a readily accessible way that allows potential participants to obtain the following information prior to enrolling in a CE program: a. Learning objectives; b. A description of the target audience and the post-licensure instructional level of the activity (introductory, intermediate, or advanced); c. Start and end times; d. Cost, including all fees and the refund/cancellation policy; e. Instructor credentials, including relevant professional degree and discipline, current professional position, and expertise in program content; f. The number of CE credits offered for each activity; g. A clear indication of any activities within a program that are not offered for CE credit. |
From Writing Behavioral Learning Objectives and Assessments (APA, Div 39)
The successful design of programs to be offered for continuing education credit requires careful planning of the educational objectives that identify what prospective participants will learn. These learning objectives should be available to prospective participants before registration for the event and must be stated in measurable terms with action verbs that focus on the participant/learner’s abilities. Rather than describing topics to be covered, learning objectives or outcomes are statements that clearly define what the participant will know or be able to do as a result of having attended the program. Learning objectives must be observable and measurable. Learning objectives should (1) focus on the learner, (2) contain action verbs that describe measurable behaviors, and (c) be appropriate to used as items on the course evaluation. As a guideline, programs should have one learning objective for each hour of learning time. A 4-hour program should have at least 3 or 4 learning objectives. 7- or 8-hour programs should have 5 or 6 learning objectives. Verbs to consider when writing learning objectives:
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