Continued Professional Development 2026 Trial
What Is CPD?
Continued Professional Development (CPD) refers to the structured and ongoing process through which a professional maintains, improves, and broadens their knowledge, skills, and competence throughout their career.
It recognises that initial qualifications alone are not sufficient in a constantly changing professional, regulatory, and economic environment. CPD ensures that practitioners remain current with industry developments, legislative changes, ethical standards, and best practices relevant to their field.
Now For Debt Counsellors
We all know that there is a need for continued professional development in the debt management industry.
Many industry parties have been talking about it for a few years now but setting up a system that works for all associations and interested parties has been intimidating and thus-far unachievable.
In an effort to pioneer a process that may later be permanently put into place, Debtfree are rolling out a free trial CPD process for 2026.
We invite all Debt Counsellors to Join!
The 2026 Trial
First off, it is important to state that there is no cost to be part of the CPD trial.
It is Free!
It is also 100% voluntary!
The 2026 trial process will provide CPD points to Debt Counsellors attending in person industry events as well as online workshops. It will also include industry reading via Debtfree Magazine each month.
The point system has been kept purposefully simple and the process will carry no legal binding weight other than totally voluntary participation.
Participants will be allowed to publish that they are part of the process which can help consumers identify which Debt Counsellors are making an ongoing effort to keep their skills up to date.
An Annual Target
As is common for CPD in any industry, it is necessary to set a goal to work towards.
This annual goal is achieved by attending the workshops, in-person meetings or training and doing formal industry reading.
For this trial, we have initially set an annual goal for participants of 120 points.
120 Points
The idea being that the goal needs to be manageable and realistic.
Note: For those registering as a Debt Counsellor after completing the NCA course during the latter half of the year, there will be a reduced goal of 100 CPD points (they will start with 70 points for completing the course).
As we start the process, any Debt Counsellors who decide to participate will receive visual recognition of participation which Debt Counsellors (and staff) could display on their web sites, social media, email signatures etc.
Once the trial is complete and the annual points tallied, then qualifying Debt Counsellors will receive special digital media to use from the start of 2027.
There will soon be a third-party database that consumers and Debt Counsellors can check to verify the displayed status. This is in an effort to combat the inevitable nonsense that may come from scammers or fraudsters down the line.
Getting Some CPD Points
There are a number of easy ways to get CPD points.
We will begin by issuing CPD Points for workshops and events registered with ourselves (as the CPD trial hub). Debt Counselling Associations, Service providers, government and credit providers are all encouraged to register their normal events throughout the year with us.
- We will issue 10 Points for online training by the NCT.
- We will issue 10 Points for completing the industry reading of Debtfree Magazine.
- We will issue 20 CPD points for attending in-person association meetings/training (smaller industry events).
- We will Issue 30 Points for attending the Annual DCASA Conference, The DC | CP Meet Up (and similar larger industry events)
- We will issue 50 points for attending any event hosted by the NCR.
- We will issue 70 Points to anyone completing the NCA Course and successfully being Registered with the NCR.
(subject to change as the process is refined)
Debt Counsellors simply have to make sure that the event organisers have their name and NCR# when they attend. The organisers will send the information to us to collate.
So, be sure to sign in at these events.
Industry Reading
Each month Debtfree Magazine will feature a CPD article in the “industry” portion of the magazine.
After reading the article, Debt Counsellors will be able to click a link to visit the associated survey and complete 4 or 5 related questions to confirm comprehension of the article’s main points. A 75% accuracy requirement ensures readers have been paying attention.
What will be featured? Well, we are inviting various industry parties to contribute these articles with up-to-date information about the debt management process. (Eg. CASA, DCASA, BASA, NDCA, PDASA, NCT, CBA etc)
We look forward to working with industry parties to identify key learning points and shaping educational learning in regard to those matters. We will be able to help with templates for articles, as well as the setup of related surveys.
Just Debt Counsellors For Now
We are hoping that the system will eventually include others in the industry beyond Debt Counsellors (such as DC support staff, Attorneys, PDA, CP staff etc). However, for the initial trial, we are concentrating on Debt Counsellor adoption.
This is a trial after all, and the full future roll out will be developed based on how things go over the next 12 months.
In the future additional funding and assistance may make expanding the project to include others more manageable.
A Deliberately Achievable Annual Goal
Debt Counsellors are busy people, and we do not want to add a burden to their workload.
Rather, we wish to reward those who are taking the time to attend workshops, meetings, doing training courses and completing industry reading.
Thus, we have purposefully made the annual goal achievable in a variety of ways for Debt Counsellors. Some may be able to attend more in person events while others may focus on industry reading and online workshops.
Let’s look at some ways points can be achieved.
Examples of Achieving Points:
A Debt Counsellor reads and completes the monthly industry reading over 12 months = 120 points
A Debt Counsellor attends 4 x in person DCASA regional meetings (80 pts) and completes an online workshop with the NCT (10 pts). They then complete 3 industry reading articles and surveys (30pts) = 120 points
or
A new Debt Counsellor does the NCA course, registers with the NCR in August (70 pts) and attends the Annual DCASA Conference (30 pts) = 100 points [the reduced requirement]
Benefits to Consumers & Debt Counsellors
The trial process is totally voluntary.
If you feel that you, as a Debt Counsellor, are just too busy to attend workshops or do industry reading, then don’t worry. You do not have to, please just keep up your good work.
If you can find the time, then we encourage you to do so. Staying current and up to date with your skills is never a bad thing for you or your clients.
The aim of the CPD program is to help recognise Debt Counsellors who are putting in work to keep their skills up to date. To make it easy to see their efforts in keeping their skills up to date.
It is also designed to help consumers easily identify which Debt Counsellors are participating, when they are thinking about who they would like to work with.
Ultimately, this is of benefit to both consumer and Debt Counsellor as it builds trust in the professional nature of the industry and practitioners.
So please join in.
Want To Help?
Running the program is labour intensive and we would love your help.
We welcome any who wish to volunteer their help to organise the process, either in funding or time and resources.
We also really welcome your feedback and are open to making ongoing adjustments to the process. So, please send us your good CPD related ideas (or concerns) to:
We look forward to working together on CPD and hope it helps with the further professionalisation of our wonderful industry.
Want CPD Points For Reading This Article?
If you are an NCR registered Debt Counsellor and have just completed reading this article, then you can click through using [THIS LINK] and complete the related CPD questionnaire.
75% correct answers qualify you to receive 10 CPD points towards your annual goal and use of CPD Media (logo) etc which can be added to your website, emails and other relevant documents. Media will be sent end of Jan 2026.
