ATDP has a responsibility to provide its graduates with the skills and knowledge necessary to provide high quality advocacy services to serving and former members of the ADF and their dependents.

Advocates work in a complex and ever changing social, government, statutory and policy environment.  Consequently, what we learned as we journeyed through the Course in Military Advocacy can quickly become out-of-date.  If this happens, we can’t give those who seek our help the assistance they deserve or ATDP’s stakeholders expect. 

The CPD program is designed to do a number of things:

• To help reinforce the knowledge we gained in our formal training;
• To help keep us abreast of changes in our working environment;
• To help us grow our professional knowledge;
• To be flexible in meeting our needs as advocates;
• To help ensure that we are covered for professional indemnity insurance under VITA; and
• To be an important part of ATDP’s quality assurance and quality control programs.

Another very important part of the CPD program called Self-directed Learning or SDL.  This is what we do every time we read a Factsheet, check the latest version of the Act, look for something on the internet or ask a colleague for help.  Its something every competent advocate does all the time – on every case.

CPD and SDL work together to make us better advocates – better able to help those who rely on us.