Professional Practice Portfolio

Running head: PROFESSIONAL NURSING PRACTICE
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE PORTFOLIO
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1PROFESSIONAL NURSING PRACTICE
Part 1
Professional practice portfolio use
Professional practice portfolio
A professional practice portfolio is an organized compilation of evidences, within which
nursing professionals record their ongoing professional practice and their learning developments
(Sciacca & Reville, 2016, p 276). These evidences further could be used by the nursing
professional to demonstrate their goals, their competencies and the details of their career
accomplishment and achievement. This document helps the nursing professionals to assess their
development, identify their present and future training needs and help them to maintain their
skills (Levine & Johnson, 2014, p 65). Moreover, this document helps them in their registration
process as it is termed as a visible record of their professional credentials and contribution.
Besides thee, it should be mentioned that depending on the application, there are several type of
professional practice portfolio and these documents are used in evaluation of nursing
performances, determining their formative development and to provide them with a detailed
educational progress (Sciacca & Reville, 2016, p 276).
The recommended components of this professional development portfolio are presence of
nurses professional development log, their educational and qualification details, their registration
and membership details, their assessment data and their individual previews and development
plan (Green, Wyllie & Jackson 2014, p 7). Besides that, their significant records, their awards
and recognition and publication of evidence based factors should be included as primary
component of portfolio (Andre & Heartfield, 2016, p 125).

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Use of professional practice portfolio
Professional practice portfolio is used by nursing professionals to understand the type of
training and developmental skills they require, the extent of skills they have achieved and the
plan they would use for the development of their needs and find ways to develop their skills
(Andre & Heartfield, 2016, p 134). Further, it also provides the nursing professionals to
understand the educational and training requirements so that development of the professionals
could be enhanced (Green, Wyllie & Jackson 2014, p 6). The primal purpose of the professional
portfolio for nursing professionals is as follows:
 Professional practice portfolio provides the nurses to assess their abilities and
skills by reviewing or reflecting upon their past experiences, thereby appraising
their abilities.
 It helps them to understand the importance of reflection so that they can
understand the importance of evidence based or experience oriented practice.
 It helps to identify the sections and practices of their profession where they lack
expertise and then help them to formulate ways using which they can develop
plans to achieve them.
 It also help them to illustrate their achievements and then to demonstrate their
ongoing thinking about their practice for quality improvement.
Arguments about benefits and challenges
Besides these purposes, the benefits and challenges should also be included in the critical
demonstration of the professional practice portfolio. The benefits of professional portfolio are
associated to the increased self confidence and self esteemed which is obtained by the nursing

3PROFESSIONAL NURSING PRACTICE
professionals (Green, Wyllie & Jackson 2014, p 5). It further help them by adding rigour and
analysis in their professional practice and provide the professionals with a clear and concise idea
of their development as they would become more critical to their own journey while developing
their professional practice portfolio. Further Levine and Johnson (2014, p 66), also mentioned
that it is the most accurate opportunity that is provided to each nursing professionals while their
educational or professional life as they could use the opportunity to develop in depth self
evaluation to appreciate their success and learn from their mistakes. However, several challenges
of professional practice portfolio are more personal than professional. Sciacca and Reville (2016,
p 277), mentioned that psychologically, for few people it is difficult to criticize their own
practice and such practice could decrease their self motivation level. Therefore, reviewing
themselves through a critical lens is a daunting process for few nursing professionals due to
which, they see it as a challenge in their professional career (Andre & Heartfield, 2016, p 275).
However, for few professional it could be a positive experience that makes the process critically
beneficial.
Difference between Management and leadership competencies
Leadership competencies could be defines as the leadership skills and behavior that help
them to connect to their employees or team members to achieve superior performance form each
member. This skill set is used by the organizations so that they can assess the presence of these
skills in their next generation leaders (Trivellas & Reklitis, 2014, p 381). The skills which could
be defined as leadership competencies are divided in three sections. While leading organization,
leaders should possess change management abilities, vision and strategy making abilities,
removing political influence, problem solving and decision making abilities. Whereas managing