While the CLD Competences are still at a relatively early stage of implementation, there are many examples of practitioners using them to good effect, for example, to guide CPD activity and to map professional progress; to define CLD jobs and roles and for recruiting staff; to guide annual appraisal schemes; to help plan work objectives, to inform planning, funding applications and to grow new work and to explore advanced practice to develop CPD training.

The CLD competence framework shows what is expected of CLD practitioners. It doesn’t however tell us about the level of knowledge and skills that we can expect of ourselves at different stages of our professional development.

The challenge for the competent CLD practitioner is to ensure that their work supports social change and social justice and is soundly based on the values of CLD. In order to support this challenge in a diverse and developing field, with practitioners from the voluntary, statutory and third sectors a Competence Framework for CLD has been formed that pulls together the skills, knowledge, organisational and personal characteristics that make up the competent practitioner.

In this video CLD professionals describe how they see the potential for using the competences to inform practice