Continuing Professional Development

What is CPD?

Qualified members of professional bodies are increasingly being required to undertake Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in order that the high standards they achieved to become qualified, are maintained whilst they continue to practice in their chosen profession.

The farriery profession has made CPD compulsory.

Annual registration is dependent on the satisfactory achievement of a specified amount of CPD.
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CPD is administered by the Farriers Registration Council (FRC).

The aims of CPD

A farrier's CPD activities should maintain and improve:

The quality of care they give their horses and the public

The standards of the teams and the services in which they work
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What they do well, address areas requiring improvement, and explore new knowledge, skills and behaviours. Their CPD should keep them up-to-date and competent in all the work that they do.

Why is CPD important for Farriers?

Horses should be better looked after. Clients and the horse owning public in particular - will be able to see whether their farrier is keeping themselves up to date, and thus make informed decisions on which farrier they engage to trim and shoe their horse(s).

Farriers improve not only their technical knowledge and techniques, including the use of modern materials, but are also updated on related topics such as modern business practice and software, client relationships, and remedial shoeing. If complaints are made about Farriers they are seen in a much more serious light if the individual has not kept up with CPD. Equally it is a strong mitigation if modern practices are studied and followed. Annual checks of CPD claimed will be carried out.
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Providers of CPD can plan events to meet the demand, thus providing better targeted CPD by location, better focussed by subject to meet demand. This means better attended events should improve quality. CPD providers should inform the FRC of CPD events which can then be publicised via the FRC website.

CPD Points

The FRC website gives an indication on which activities are, and are not suitable as counting towards CPD. Farriers don't have to always physically attend CPD events to accumulate points. Instead for example, they can read farriery and business related articles. The key is that by the end of the CPD task, the farrier should always be able to state what they have learnt.

Since 2014, it has been mandatory for Approved Training Farriers (ATF)s to complete a minimum of 10 CPD points each year; from January 2016, all newly Registered Farriers were also required to undertake CPD.
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The FRC guidance gives a helpful explanation on CPD hours and the number of points that they equate to.

I am a farrier and I want to start earning my CPD points:-

1. As a first step please note the following:-

You are responsible for your personal learning.
You are responsible for identifying your CPD needs, planning how you will address those needs, and undertaking CPD activities that are relevant to your craft and will support your professional development.

2. As a second step, please visit the FRC Website to:-

a) Gain a better understanding of the type of CPD activities you can complete and see the events available for you to attend.
b) Start logging and submitting your annual Continuing Professional Development.