Stephanie Thomason explains how the BDA Education & Professional Practice team is supporting learners, higher education institutes and practice educators across all four nations.
The Education & Professional Practice team at the BDA has secured significant funding from Health Education England to drive forward our education and practice workforce agenda. This funding will be used by the BDA to support dietetics across all four nations.
We are currently working on 11 exciting projects across five themes to support the education and training of the future dietetic workforce, continuing our vision to support innovative pre-registration dietetic education. Our Dietetic Workforce Development Programme projects will support development of the emerging dietetic workforce in an innovative and diverse way, and promote awareness that dietetic roles and opportunities are open for all across our workforce and that dietetics and working as an AHP is an exciting and rewarding career.
You can see a brief introduction to the projects below and more information on the projects’ progress can be found here.
1 Future careers
- A review of the existing Future Dietitian 2025 report to ensure it is fit for the mid-21st century and reflects the digital agenda and post-COVID-19 implications
2 Pre-registration education and training
- Identify approaches for delivering practice-based learning across a variety of dietetic settings to meet BDA curriculum practice-based learning hour requirements
- Develop a campaign promoting Practice-based Learning innovation to BDA members and health and social care stakeholders
- Develop the BDA website for shared practice-based learning resources across a range of dietetic landscapes
- Explore the feasibility of using a common assessment tool for dietetic practice-based learning
3 Diversity and inclusion
- Drive improvements in equality, diversity and inclusion within pre-registration education and careers
- Promotion of breadth of dietetic roles across the NHS and social care services
- Contribute to Health Education England’s AHP demand and capacity project
4 Career development
- Undertake a review of the implementation of the BDA preceptorship guidance
- Develop examples and case studies of best practice in early dietetic careers
- Create dietetic resources to support the education, scope of practice and pastoral guidance of international recruits
5 Clinical practice development
- A neonatal training needs analysis to outline training needs at enhanced level
How can learners, HEIs and practice educators from across the nations get involved?
Are you looking to add to your continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities, or get more involved in the work of the BDA? The BDA is looking for your support to produce some of the resources we need to raise awareness of the innovation and diversification in dietetic preregistration education.
As a part of the BDA’s Dietetic Workforce Development Programme, we are looking to develop our practice-based learning resources and share these experiences across our learners and educators. We want to hear from learners who have gone out to nonclinical practice-based learning settings. We would love for you to write a blog about your experiences or be a BDA case study example that can be used as a feature on our new BDA practice-based learning page and within our campaign.
We have some brilliant examples of learners that have worked with us to produce some amazing blogs and Q&As on their experiences out on non-clinical practice-based learning. These blogs are a great example of the breadth of learning outcomes that can be achieved in a non-clinical practice-based learning setting.
You can check out the blogs and Q&As on the new resources tab, aand this example from Jessica Pearse and Sophie Kendall.
But we are looking for more examples from our learners. If you would like to write about your non clinical practice-based learning experience, you can find information on how to do this here.
The BDA is committed to providing equal opportunities. The BDA intends to do this by maintaining, and rigorously implementing, an Equal Opportunities Policy and Code of Practice. We particularly encourage black and minority ethnic people, people with disabilities and LGBT+ people to send us non-clinical practice-based learning experiences, as these communities are currently under-represented in our workforce.
We are also looking to our HEIs and practice educator colleagues to share their practice-based learning experiences through case studies of both existing and new models and approaches implemented both in clinical across all dietetic settings (including paediatrics, renal, mental health, research, etc) and non-clinical settings (which could include industry, research, public health, voluntary sector or other nonclinical type environments). We will then share these across our dietetic educators and learners. You can find more information on how to submit a case study, along with a readily prepared case study template here.
You can keep up to date on the progress of the workforce development projects here. If you have any queries, please contact [email protected].