Program Information & Reporting Requirements

The YRNA Continuing Competence Process
As registered nurses, we have the professional and personal responsibility to provide safe, ethical, quality care. We are responsible and accountable for our professional practice not only to ourselves but to our colleagues, our employers, our regulatory body and most importantly to the public. Processes to facilitate the demonstration of Continuing Competence for registered nurses have been developed throughout Canada and internationally.

The Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) defines continuing competence as:
"The ongoing ability of a nurse to integrate and apply the knowledge, skills, judgment and personal attributes required to practise safely and ethically in a designated role and setting." Maintaining this ongoing ability involves a continual process linking the code of ethics, standards of practice and life-long learning. The registered nurse reflects on his/her practice on an ongoing basis and takes action continually to improve that practice. (A National Framework for Continuing Competence Process for Registered Nurses: CNA: September 2000)

The YRNA Continuing Competence Process is designed to reflect the values encompassed in this definition. It asks members to explore how they apply knowledge, skill and judgment acquired through nursing education and experience. It is through the application of these nursing attributes, rather than through a list of skills or tasks, that nursing practice is defined.

Foundational Principles

• Yukon registered nurses maintain a high standard of practice and expertise and consistently demonstrate motivation to pursue ongoing learning. Through the Continuing Competence Process, YRNA will support members in being ‘consciously competent’ as they seek excellence in practice. This process will provide them with opportunities to demonstrate and recognize their own ongoing professional development.


• Enhancing continuing competence through life-long learning is essential to professional nursing practice because it contributes to the quality of patient outcomes and to the evidence base for nursing practice.


• Individual nurses, professional and regulatory nursing organizations, employers, educational institutions and governments share the responsibility to promote continuing competence. In order to meet this purpose, the goals of the Continuing Competence Process are to:


1. Demonstrate to the public Yukon registered nurses’ commitment to quality, evidence-based care.


2. Support registered nurses in their professional commitment to lifelong learning and excellence.

As a reflection of the unique nursing practice in the Yukon, the Continuing Competence Process is designed to be flexible and adaptable and include formal, non-formal, traditional and non-traditional learning activities.

Mandatory Requirements

The Continuing Competence Process is mandatory for all nurses holding a practising license or temporary permit with the Yukon Registered Nurses Association (YRNA). The information and requirements in this document outline the minimal expectations/minimal standards to be upheld by each Yukon registered nurse.

Members of the YRNA Registration and Nursing Practice Committees will form the audit committee for the CCP. They will be responsible for monitoring and documenting member compliance with the CCP, and for providing information about the effectiveness of the process to individual members and to YRNA.

Members must keep all documents for a minimum of three years, to provide for audit if requested.

What is Mandatory?

Beginning with the 2011 license renewal, completing the minimal expectations of the Continuing Competence Process will be mandatory. There are no maximum expectations! Minimal expectations are:

Ongoing

• Each member is expected to maintain a ‘Portfolio’ on an ongoing basis. The Portfolio is an ongoing record of learning. Members are strongly encouraged to be creative in creating a Portfolio that reflects their own style and priorities. Suggestions for documentation options which can be included in a Portfolio are included in the CCP Booklet which can be printed from the document list below.

Annually as you begin a new license year

• Begin a new self-assessment for the registration year just beginning
• Using the Standards based checklists, identify strengths and learning goals related to your current practice
• Reviewing the self-assessment, choose one learning goal to be a focus for that year’s learning activities, on which you will report back in the next renewal
• Develop a learning plan based on the identified standard-linked learning goal
• Carry out your learning plan over the year; evaluate and revise as needed, using the familiar steps of the nursing process: assess, plan, implement, evaluate
• Keep records of these activities in your portfolio

Annually as part of your license renewal

• Submit the Annual Reporting Form (pp 15-16) with your license renewal form. Renewal applications that do not include the CCP report form will be returned to the member for completion in order for the license renewal to be processed.

Peer Review by the Audit Committee

If you are one of the members randomly selected for audit in a given year, your renewal package, sent out in late January, will include an audit notification.

5-10% of YRNA membership will be asked to provide their full Continuing Competence records, including the portfolio and self assessment pages. You may want to remove personal additions to your portfolio, such as a lifeline or thank you notes from clients. Be sure to retain records for three years, as the audit committee may request three years of documentation for review.

After the end of the renewal period, documents submitted for audit will be reviewed by the audit committee, made up of fellow registered nurses. If your records have been reviewed, you will receive feedback as to whether your documentation is complete and whether you have demonstrated effective use of the process.

The committee will be particularly looking for evidence that you have not just engaged in education, but actually applied learning to your practice.

To demonstrate the application of acquired knowledge, when preparing your Annual Reporting Form for YRNA, ask yourself the questions:

• How do I do things differently after this learning process?
• Or, did I find evidence that my current approach is still best practice?
• What do I understand better now?

Remember, the committee is seeking to assess your demonstrated commitment to learning.

How-To Information

Step 1: Portfolio ...an ongoing process
Throughout each year, maintain your Portfolio, adding all certificates, reading material, feedback, reflections and so on. Include records of any community/volunteer work related to health and wellness, as well as any work for your professional organization. As you develop your learning plan, these will support your reflection, self assessment and goal setting process. Later pages in this package will guide you in what activities and documents you might add to your Portfolio.

Step 2: Self-Assessment Worksheets based on the Standards for Registered Nursing Practice in the Yukon ... at the beginning of the registration year
Read the Standard at the top of each worksheet page. It is important for nurses, as self-regulators, to be familiar with the Standards that guide their practice. Each Standard has indicators for practice; assess which are relevant to your area of practice.

Use the rating key provided, rate your practice at this time and place related to each indicator. Try to be honest with yourself! Remember, this assessment is for your own reflection and development you will not be judged or criticized for recognizing areas where you need to learn more or develop skills that is part of professional growth.

Step 3: Strengths and Yearly Learning Plan ...at the beginning of the registration year
Once you have completed each worksheet, identify an area you feel is a strength related to that standard in your practice. This is your chance to reflect on the areas in which you feel you are particularly proficient. Link your area of strength to the Standards for Practice.

Now look back at your self-assessment worksheets. Note the areas you rated as ‘Refining’ or ‘Developing’ (see page 6 for an explanation of ratings). Identify one of these areas marked refining or developing: as an area where you want to and can improve.

Think about the different ways you can work towards improvement in this area as you review the list of appropriate learning activities, included in Useful Resources. How could some of these learning activities facilitate an improvement? Which activities would work best for your goal? Think about ways in which you can achieve your goal - brainstorm and write down your thoughts.

Review the SMART acronym, the list of helpful action words and the appropriate learning activities in the Useful Resources section to develop your goal. This goal should be appropriate to your area of practice and background, or an area where you are interested in moving toward. Once you have identified a learning goal, link it again to one of the Standards of Practice. This will help you stay within the framework of the Standards for Registered Nursing Practice in the Yukon that guide your practice.

Step 4: Completion...as part of registration renewal each year
Review your plan for the year, refer to this How To section to make sure you are on track with the expectations of the process. Ideally your learning plan will hold personal interest for you and will:

• advance your knowledge of best practices
• help you to safely, competently and ethically deliver care
• improve your practice (there’s always room for improvement!)
• build capacity for leadership.

Throughout the year, work toward your chosen goal, and document your progress and activities. Celebrate your successes and how you challenge yourself! Record evidence about how well you met your goal, and what might be next for you regarding that learning process. Complete the Professional Development Checklist to ensure you have completed all portions of the CCP for submission.

Complete the Annual Reporting Form and sign the form. By signing this form, you are stating for the purposes of licensure that you have worked to complete your continuing competence requirements throughout the year.

(Eventually this process will be retroactive and you will have up to 3 years of information / portfolios / learning plans on file for review if required.)

Submit the Annual Reporting Form with your renewal application. You do not need to send in your entire learning plan and portfolio unless notified of audit. This process is based on personal responsibility to maintain/continue your education throughout your career. If you are notified that you are to be audited, you will be required to submit your learning plans and portfolios with your application as well, in order to meet renewal requirements.

Lifeline and Useful Resources

As an optional exercise, you may find creating a personal lifeline a useful tool. Click here for an example of a Personal Lifeline and other useful resources which you may find helpful in completing your Annual Learning Goals and Yearly Plan.

CCP Printable Forms & Documents

Forms and information related to the Continuing Competence Process may be printed from this website. Completed forms must be mailed to YRNA along with the annual license renewal form and fees in cheque or money order form.

• CCP Program Book 
• CCP Annual Reporting Form 

(NOTE: The Annual Reporting Form can be completed onscreen and printed or printed and completed manually. Information entered in the form on the computer will not be saved. Be sure to print/save a copy for your records.)

• Self-Assessment Worksheets 
• Learning Goal and Yearly Plan Sheet 
• Professional Development Checklist 
• Rating Key for Self Assessment Worksheets