About the Thames Valley Practitioner Development Scheme
How does the scheme work?
Practitioners successfully accepted on to the scheme will over the course of 11 months submit an e-portfolio comprising of 3 discrete pieces of work with evidence that demonstrates their knowledge, understanding and application mapping all 34 UKPHR Practitioner Standards.
The Thames Valley Scheme supports practitioners through the provision of 1 induction and 4 portfolio development groups, facilitated by Oxford Brookes University. The scheme will assign each practitioner to a mentor who is a registered public health practitioner. Individuals will be required to attend 5 Public Health Masterclasses run by London South Bank University.
The individual will be expected to submit their completed e-portfolio at the completion date defined by the scheme. Interested applicants should carefully consider the amount of work involved and the amount of personal time expected to be able to meet deadlines.
The portfolio of evidence will be reviewed by UKPHR trained assessors and verified by a panel to inform a recommendation to the UKPHR.
Selection criteria
- Employment within the Thames Valley geographical area (Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Milton Keynes). For those working outside the area, please see UKPHR for your local scheme.
- Approximately 2 years’ public health experience, usually having occupied a public health practitioner post (see website for further information) at NHS Agenda for Change band 5 – 7 or equivalent in other sectors operating at Level 5. See the Health Career Level Framework at Skills for Health, for more information. They must be working autonomously.
- Self-assessment against the Public Health Practitioner Standards. Applicants must be able to demonstrate (through completing the self-assessment form) a broad range of relevant experience.
- A signed commitment to completing a portfolio against the Public Health Practitioner Standards for Registration in the timescale specified and full participation in all elements of the scheme.
- A signed commitment from the line manager for active support and encouragement through practitioner attendance at the induction, learning sets, writing time for portfolio development, relevant CPD events, and progress reviews to address development needs, to a maximum of 8 days in the period specified.
Evaluations and feedback
An external evaluation of the scheme was carried out in 2016. A further external evaluation was done for the 2021 scheme and is available here.
You said We did
One of the recommendations of the 2021 evaluation was to respond to recipients following their feedback. This You said We did document outlines this. The Thames Valley Scheme would like to thank the assessors, verifiers and mentors for taking the time to complete the survey and your ongoing support.