I’ve been thinking a lot lately about CPD — not the hours we log, but the learning that actually stays with us.

Anthony Mitchell

CPD that feeds the work, not just the paperwork. Because development should change how we interpret – not just prove we attended something.

I once went to a CPD session about grief. Not interpreting grief. Just grief itself — the psychology of it, the weight of it, the shape it takes in people’s lives. It wasn’t flashy. No glossy certificates or professional buzzwords.

But it stayed with me. Not because it gave me new vocabulary or interpreting techniques, but because it helped me sit better in the silences — the moments when someone stops mid-sentence and you somehow know not to rush in.

That’s the kind of CPD that matters. The kind that stays in your bones, not just your portfolio. But it’s not always like that, is it? Too often CPD feels like a list to complete. A hoop to jump through. A quiet pressure to prove you still belong in the profession.

You chase hours, scan the register, book the thing that’s cheap and local — or online and doesn’t clash with school pick-up. And that’s where we start to lose the point.

This post is a love letter (with a bit of side-eye) to CPD: what it can be, what it sometimes becomes, and how we might rescue it from the spreadsheet and bring it back to life.

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What CPD Is (And Isn’t)

In theory, CPD is about growth. It’s there to stretch us, sharpen us, and reconnect us with why we do this work in the first place. It should feed our practice, challenge our blind spots, and remind us we’re part of a bigger conversation than just the last job or the next invoice.

In practice, through? It can feel like admin.

A quiet box-ticking exercise designed more to satisfy the register than nourish the practitioner. “Have you done your 24 hours?” becomes the measure, rather than what actually changed in your work because of it.

There’s nothing wrong with structure or accountability. We need that. But when CPD becomes performative, we start to disengage. We chase certificates over substance. We choose safe, familiar topics instead of the ones that might challenge us. We nod through webinars we half-listen to while folding laundry. (No judgement – we’ve all been there.) And somewhere along the way, we forget that the “D” in CPD stand for development.

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Curiosity Over Compliance

CPD should be curiosity in action — a way of saying I want to understand this better, not I need to log this to keep my status.

Across many professions, research consistently shows that the most meaningful development happens when practitioners reflect deeply on their work rather than simply attending courses.

Reflective practice is often described as the ability to think about our actions with the intention of learning from them and adapting future behaviour. It’s what turns experience into growth.

In other words, experience alone does not necessarily lead to learning. Deliberate reflection does.

What might that look like in practice?

• Journaling about a tough job — not to prove you did it, but to understand how and why you responded as you did.

• Reading research or blogs that stretch your assumptions.

• Talking through a sticky dilemma with a colleague and noticing what surprises you about their perspective.

• Attending a session not because it counts, but because it genuinely interests you.

This kind of CPD moves us beyond checklists and toward lifelong learning. It aligns with wider professional development research that frames CPD not as a bureaucratic hoop, but as an ongoing reflective process.

As many professional development frameworks note:

Reflective practice can be the most important source of personal professional development and improvement.

When curiosity leads our development, CPD becomes less about surviving a requirements matrix and more about becoming better — not just registered.

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The Many Forms of Development

When we think of CPD, the first images that often come to mind are courses, webinars, and certificates. But CPD is so much more than that — and in the UK interpreting profession, there are several bodies and communities that support meaningful development in different ways.

The Many Forms of Development

At the centre of this ecosystem is the National Registers of Communication Professionals working with Deaf and Deafblind People (NRCPD). NRCPD acts as the voluntary regulator for language service professionals in the UK. Its Code of Conduct and CPD requirements ask registrants to continue learning and reflecting on their practice throughout their careers.

Alongside regulation, professional associations offer community‑centred CPD spaces:

Visual Language Professionals (VLP) provides a membership network for interpreters, translators, lipspeakers and Deafblind communicators. The organisation offers affordable CPD events, webinars, and peer groups designed by practitioners for practitioners.

The Association of Sign Language Interpreters (ASLI) has supported interpreters since 1987. Through workshops, networking events, mentoring opportunities and professional discussions, it creates space for interpreters to think about practice — not just log CPD hours.

In Scotland, the Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters (SASLI) promotes quality practice and provides support and CPD opportunities specifically tailored to interpreters working in Scotland.

The National Union of British Sign Language Interpreters (NUBSLI) focuses on professional advocacy, working conditions and fair practice across the sector. While not a CPD provider in the traditional sense, its work contributes to professional development by strengthening interpreters’ collective voice and shaping the conditions in which practice happens.

Together, these organisations remind us that development does not live only in formal courses.

Growth also happens when we join networks, attend discussions, learn from regional meetings, and participate in communities that care about how we interpret — not just that we have interpreted.

There’s also an important question about whose knowledge counts in our development. Much of the most meaningful learning for interpreters comes from Deaf spaces, Deaf educators, and Deaf-led conversations about access, language, and power.

Yet, Deaf-led CPD opportunities are still not as common as they should be. If we’re serious about development, this matters. Interpreting doesn’t exist in isolation from the communities we work with, and some of the most important learning happens when we listen to Deaf perspectives on what good interpreting actually feels like from the other side of the interaction.

CPD is not just about accumulating hours; it’s about consciously developing yourself through a combination of formal and informal learning.

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Barriers and Burnout

It’s not that interpreters don’t want to develop. It’s that we’re often too tired to do it in the way it’s currently packaged. After back-to-back jobs, travel delays, admin backlog, and emotional load (because yes, witnessing trauma isn’t neutral), the idea of sitting through another webinar — especially one you didn’t choose, about a topic you’re not interested in — can feel like the final straw.

It’s no wonder that, for many practitioners, CPD becomes a quiet source of guilt rather than inspiration. And then there’s …

Cost.
Time.
Access.
Neurodivergence.
Parenting.
A lack of topics that speak to the emotional or ethical parts of the work.

These aren’t excuses. They’re structural and human barriers that deserve to be taken seriously. Professional bodies rightly encourage ongoing learning. But we also need to look at how that learning is offered.

Is it flexible?
Is it relevant?
Does it reflect who interpreters actually are and what they need in the work?

Too often, CPD feels designed for a hypothetical interpreter with infinite energy, a predictable schedule, and no childcare responsibilities.

When CPD feels disconnected from lived experience, it risks becoming another thing to survive rather than something that sustains us.

Yet beneath the burnout there is still curiosity. There is still wisdom in the profession. The challenge is creating spaces where that curiosity can breathe.

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Reclaiming CPD

What if CPD wasn’t about obligation, but about craft?

About tending to the parts of ourselves that make this work possible: our language, our ethics, our attention, even our humour.

The best CPD I’ve experienced wasn’t always listed in a directory. Sometimes it was a podcast that made me pause mid-walk. Or a book I read sideways through the lens of interpreting. And a conversation after a difficult job that reshaped how I think about presence.

Anything that helped me see differently — and show up better.

So here’s the invitation: reclaim CPD as something that belongs to you.

Personal.
Professional.
Sometimes messy.
But nourishing.

Start with something that sparks your interest, not your admin list. If we treat development as something to get through, we miss the point. But if we treat it as something to grow with, we’re doing more than staying on the register. We’re staying alive in the work.

A small question to leave you with:

When was the last time CPD genuinely changed how you work?

Not just what you logged – but how you listened, interpreted, or showed up in the room.

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📚Further Reading

📘 For Trainee Interpreters

NRCPD CPD Handbook & Guidance
Clear explanation of CPD expectations and how to document reflective learning.
https://www.nrcpd.org.uk

ASLI Resources & Events
Workshops, discussions and events that support developing interpreters.
https://www.asli.org.uk

Institute of Translation and Interpreting – CPD for Language Professionals
Overview of different forms of CPD including formal and informal learning.
https://www.iti.org.uk

Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) – CPD Guidance
Perspective on CPD for language professionals transitioning into practice.
https://www.ciol.org.uk

🎓 For Experienced Practitioners

NRCPD Reflective Practice Guidance
Information on integrating reflective learning into professional CPD records.
https://www.nrcpd.org.uk

ASLI CPD Events & Professional Discussions
Advanced workshops and professional debate spaces.
https://www.asli.org.uk

Reflective Practice in Professional Development
Overview of reflective practice as a learning framework.

Visual Language Professionals (VLP)
Community-led CPD, webinars and peer-learning events.
https://www.visuallanguageprofessionals.org