Forming and developing your professional identity: easy as PI. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Health education and promotion specialists and professional organizations have worked hard to successfully establish and maintain the status of health education/promotion (HE/P) as a unique and essential profession and to solidify practitioners' sense of professional identity. A professional identity is critical to a person's sense of self: It is about connecting with roles, responsibilities, values, and ethical standards unique to a specific profession. Professional identity is a complex issue in the HE/P profession; the distinction between personal and professional identities has been debated repeatedly over the years (e.g., should HE/P professionals be role models for clients?). The purpose of this Tool is to explain the concept of professional identity; provide new, emerging, and experienced HE/P with a greater understanding of what it means to have a professional identity; present processes and benchmarks of professional identity development; and offer specific tips and strategies for developing and enhancing an HE/P professional identity.

published proceedings

  • Health Promot Pract

altmetric score

  • 13.526

author list (cited authors)

  • Goltz, H. H., & Smith, M. L.

citation count

  • 19

complete list of authors

  • Goltz, Heather HonorĂ©||Smith, Matthew Lee

publication date

  • November 2014