Parallel sessions 2
Use this planner to filter the different parts of the programme by keyword and/or theme. You can also search in the title and author of the presentation.
You can also use this tool to plan and print your personal conference programme by clicking on the star in the upper left corner of the selected session. After you made your pick, go to the global programme, click on the “Show my picks” button and print your programme.
Wednesday 11 Sep 2019
Conference symposium 2 - Quality in career guidance
Quality in Careers: Opportunities, challenges and planning for the future.
Moderators: Siobhan Neary, Erik Hagaseth HaugPlenary room
This event draws together a collection of projects with cross cutting themes addressing quality assurance of career development activities. It provides an opportunity to explore theoretical and implementational aspects of quality applications focusing on existing and developing practice. This is an interactive symposium providing an opportunity for delegates to discuss and reflect on examples of quality approaches from Europe and wider field.
Moderators: Siobhan Neary (University of Derby), Erik Hagaseth Haug (Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences)
- Peter Weber (University of Heidelberg, Germany)
- Erik Hagaseth Haug (Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences)
- Jill Hanson (University of Derby, UK) – Gatsby Benchmarks
- Anita Montagna (Pluriversum, Italy) – Myfuture project (European project)
- Jeroen Bregman, (Noloc, Netherlands)
- Schany Taix (Fédération Nationale des CIBC)
- Tomas Sprlak (European Federation of Centres of Career Guidance and Bilan de Compétences) - quality auditor
Oral session 2.1 - Social-Emotional Learning
Teachers’ Perceptions of SEL skills in South Africa: Lessons Learnt from Cross-Cultural Data Collection
Gloria MarsayB1.06 Kysuce
Three challenges identified by the Department of Higher Education in South Africa are poverty, unemployment and inequality. These social challenges emphasize the need for social support within communities. Unstable fragmented family life leaves children with little social support and limited role models. Unfortunately, crime and violence occur often in many South African schools. Schools have been identified as important places to curb the negative impact of prevalent violence. Specifically, two protection factors, that build resilience have been suggested namely, supportive relationships with significant others; and, growing up in a safe social environment. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills are fundamental to promoting resilience in young people, especially those who are making the transition from secondary school into tertiary education and training, and the world of work. Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) list five core competencies – self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship management and responsible decision-making.
This presentation will describe the initial stages of a collaborative international study. The aim of the study is to examine teachers’ perceptions of social and emotional learning (SEL) skills, and how these skills are used personally and professionally to bolster resilience in young people. Qualitative questionnaires were used to collect data from a purposive sample of educators working with disenfranchised learners. Emerging themes were identified and coded. Meaning was made of the data through an iterative process. Lessons learnt from the research process and preliminary findings will be discussed.
Oral session 2.2 - Evaluation and impact
A tool for assessing interdisciplinary career guidance
Lilja Taru & Päivi Pukkila & Jaako Helander & Anne Leppänen & Seija MäkinenB1.07 Liptov
This research deals with career guidance as interdisciplinary collaboration offered at the Finnish Guidance Centers. In One-Stop Guidance Centers, career guidance is offered by experts representing different fields of expertise as well as different administrative sectors involved in guidance service provision. Career guidance plays an important role in the service and it seems to have a strong interdisciplinary base but while lacking previous studies, there is no guarantee that it in fact is truly interdisciplinary. We define interdisciplinary career guidance broadly as a shared understanding of the objectives, methods and ways of working in career guidance between the experts working in One-Stop Guidance Centers.
In this study, we consider how to systematically assess interdisciplinary career guidance in an interdisciplinary service. We present a semi structured observational form that was created during the ESF funded project CAREER! (2019-2021). The ultimate purpose of the form is to help evaluate how the guidance professionals act both as a part of interdisciplinary working
community and with the client. It is designed to assess the activities of interdisciplinary career guidance service and can be used in contexts other than One-Stop Guidance Centers as well.
Effects of career counselling: results of a formative and a summative evaluation programme
Nicola KunzB1.07 Liptov
The systematic measurement of changes in the counselling process has increasingly come to the fore in recent years. For a long time now, it has not only been a question of asking clients at the end of the counselling process whether they considered the counselling to be useful, but also of concepts that focus on concrete constructs which should be changed during the counselling process on the one hand and take account of several measurement points on the other hand.
In this presentation two studies are presented which try to take this challenge into account. Results of two studys are going to be presented. The aim of both studies is to analyse changes in career counselling outcomes – before and after the counselling session as well as one year later. Results indicate that career counselling can have an direct impact on different person-related variables like confidence or claerness of aims already. Variables that are more related to life-designing themes need more time for a change.
Evaluating the effect of counselling services on employability indicators in the context of public employment services
Tomas Sprlak & Katarina Sochorova & Miroslava Smatanova & Rastislav LetnickyB1.07 Liptov
In 2017, Slovak employment services (Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family) developed a specific framework of factors with the objective to operationalize the concept of “personal employability” that would allow to better monitor the impact of the counselling programmes and promote the individualization of the service to the specific needs of jobseekers.
The initial version of the framework is inspired by existing European practices and was developed in consultations with counsellors and employers. The model contains 16 items formulated as career management skills, divided into four areas, inspired by foreign practice: 1. Identity and motivation, 2. Strengths/potential, 3. Horizons and planning and 4. Networks and relationships.
The framework was tailored for the target group of adults in the situation of unemployment, and many jobseeking competences are included among career management skills. The framework is used as a checklist during the initial interview of a counselling programme to assess the situation of the jobseeker and his career management skills. This assessment leads to set learning goals of the counselling programme. The same checklist is used during the last interview to assess the progress of the jobseeker.
Initial testing of the framework (n=873 jobseekers) showed a significant increase in all the indicators between initial measurement and measurement after the counselling process. The most significant positive impact was measured on jobseekers knowledge of different ALMPs, ability to prepare CV and motivation letter, action planning and self-presentation. The testing also lead to the identification of a common g-factor and to further optimisation of the construct validity of the tool. The framework is now used for impact evaluation of all internal and external counselling services at Slovak employment services.
Oral session 2.3 - Emerging adulthood
Does Development of Career Management Skills Reduce Freshmen’ Anxiety about Their Career in Labor Markets?
Sachiko MorijaB1.08 Orava
A university freshman who has the opportunity to select the desired course of study believes that he/she has succeeded in choosing the right career path. However, even those students sometimes have serious anxiety about their careers in the labor markets. The reason why is that it is too difficult for them to predict their future careers due to rapid globalization and technology development and so on. In such circumstances, it is thought that the career management skills (hereinafter called "CMS") development will play an important role for them in order to survive their uncertain life. Therefore, we investigated the difference of the following four CMS in the high and low career anxiety groups of freshmen. (1) Adopting to change in the society, (2) Managing goals and time, (3) Developing long-term career and learning and (4) Working effectively in diverse teams. Furthermore, we analyze which CMS are more effective in reducing career anxiety. As a result, the low-anxiety group scores were higher than high-anxiety group scores in all items. In particular, knowledge and skills of (1) and the knowledge of (3) are significantly different between two groups. This result indicates that acquiring these knowledge and skills in career guidance program is effective for reducing the career anxiety of university freshmen.
Predictors of using career guidance services by emerging adults
Lenka Hloušková & Petr Hlaďo & Bohumíra LazarováB1.08 Orava
The paper presents partial outcomes of two waves of data collection within the framework of the longitudinal research project: Career adaptability of vocational upper-secondary school graduates during the school-to-work transition. Both waves of data collection took place in two regions of the Czech Republic (the South-Moravian Region and the Moravian-Silesian Region). The first wave of data collection took place in March and April 2018. A total of 3,028 full-time students, before graduation from VET, were participants in this study. The second wave of data collection took place among the same participants in February and March 2019 with a time interval of 10 months and we received 499 questionnaires.
We will present the possible predictors of use of career guidance services in this group with respect to the variety of services emerging adults may use after completion of upper-secondary education. We will focus on the level of career adaptability and other variables that lead emerging adults to use career guidance services.
In the first wave of data collection, it was demonstrated by means of multiple linear regression that one-off or multiple use of career guidance services increases not only overall career adaptability, but also the dimension of career concern and curiosity. After the second wave of data collection, we have been investigating what level of career adaptability measured just before completion of upper-secondary education leads emerging adults to use career guidance services after completion of upper-secondary education and at the same time which other variables may be considered predictors of using these services. Taking into account the previous findings, that the use of the services enhances career adaptability and what predicts the use of these services, we may open up a discussion about the potential of career guidance services for the development of an inclusive society.
Oral session 2.4 - NEET
Preventing At-Risk Youth Becoming NEET: Effective High-School Work-Integrated-Learning Policies and Programs in Canada
Loraine Godden & Atsushi OkabeB1.09 Turiec
One of the most recommended and promising educational structures for curtailing youth under- and unemployment is vocational education or work-integrated-learning (WIL). WIL has been commended by researchers reporting individual outcomes and data at the societal level. International organizations have also recommended better use of interfaces like WIL to link education and work. WIL refers to educational and other interventions (based in schools, colleges, and agencies) for high school students and young adults that facilitate learning by placing them in supervised placement in the workplace for all or part of their educational program. These learning experiences include workplace mentoring, paid or unpaid work experience, instruction in workplace competencies, and cooperative education. WIL is a promising approach to bridging the relationship between at-risk youth and their educational context preventing youth from becoming NEET. In this presentation, we present an overview of the range of school-based WIL programs from two provinces of Canada, Alberta and Ontario that are purposefully intended to provide students with a range of vocational and work-related options during their compulsory schooling (high-school, aged 14-18). In our presentation we discuss the commonalities and differences between the two provinces providing an opportunity for the audience to learn how about specific features of the programs are positioned to meet the needs of youth at-risk of non-completion of high school and becoming NEET youth in Canada. We will also facilitate discussion for the audience to compare and contrast with their own systems for supporting at-risk and NEET youth through vocational and WIL school-based programing.
Preventing NEETness: career focused mentoring in English schools
Jill HansonB1.09 Turiec
In England only “one in three disadvantaged students gaining very good GCSE grades, compared with more than 60% of their wealthier peers. As a consequence, almost one million young people are currently not in education, employment or training.” (https://www.futurefrontiers.org.uk). One organisation in England is tackling this through a career mentoring programme for year 11 school pupils. It matches every pupil to a career coach for ten sessions of coaching and employer engagement (a form of mentoring) that aims to equip them with the information, skills, and mind-set to realise their career aspirations and maintain the motivation to achieve their full potential. The aim is to create long term engagement at school by developing pupils' aspirations and build practical connections to their education. The programme has recently been evaluated to ascertain the impact on participants. This paper discusses this evaluation which used a quasi-experimental design with a control group and found significant increases in career readiness, thinking about work, talking about work and thinking about school.
Young people NEET – how do they make their career decisions?
Mags BexonB1.09 Turiec
The current labour market is increasingly complex and competitive which is making it challenging for young people to be confident in making the best decisions about their future careers. This research has gained an in-depth understanding of how young people Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) come to make decisions about their careers and next stage plans. The participants in this research live in the Thames Valley region in England. The research makes a contribution to our understanding of the career decision making processes of young people who are NEET through their voices.
My research is motivated by a desire to understand and explain the actions of NEETs and how they come to make decisions about their futures. It is underpinned by an interpretive theoretical framework which has allowed for the development of the voice of the participants, as well as reaching a level of understanding about their lives. Looking through this interpretive lens has allowed me to come to understand the lives of the participants, rather than simply explain.
I have chosen participant observation and informal semi-structured interviews, supported by an interview guide, as my methods. These were selected to allow for a relationship of trust to develop between myself and my participants and to ensure that interactions with them were as natural as possible.
The discussion in this paper is based on my preliminary data collected during my PhD. It discusses themes that have emerged from the data that are having an impact on the ability of my participants to make sound and informed choices about their future. Large barriers such as low academic attainment, fragile personal well-being and a lack of structure in the lives of the young people are identified. It is observed that these are having a detrimental impact on their ability to proactively make plans and decisions about their futures.
Oral session 2.5 - Career and gender
Business as a career strategy for Czech woman
Lucie VáclavkováB1.10 Záhorie
The identification of the problem is the result of author’s observation during practice as a career counsellor. This article summarizes researches, studies and data focused on women on the labour market and women entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic, then deals with their motivation, the risks of this career choice and problem of precarisation. The findings came from various sources (literature, articles, research, studies, etc) and were connected into a meaningful unit. There were compared and confronted various findings and opinions.
The Czech Republic is one of the countries with the greatest negative impact of motherhood on a women’s career, with high unemployment rate of mothers with children under fifteen and problem with return after maternity leave. As main obstacles are considered unavailable childcare and lack flexible working patterns, especially part-time.
The number of Czech female entrepreneurs is growing. Between 2011 and 2017, ten times more Czech women than men started their own business. Just as men do, women want to have their own business, be independent and use the opportunity. But according to the research, for some women business activity is the only choice to avoid unemployment, to combine work and family and to gain some income. Women entrepreneurs (especially self-employed) are vulnerable to precarisation.
The author suggests possible measures for policy, career practice and education. Some of them support women as entrepreneurs, the other promote employment prospects, so that the business remains the choice and not the necessity.
Professional transit of women into IT
Monika Ptacnikova & Dita Prikrylova & Petra DrahonovskaB1.10 Záhorie
Digital literacy is becoming a standard requirement for many other occupations, and its importance is likely to grow due to rapid advancement in technologies. However, young women do not consider IT as a choice for further education or employment. Therefore, only 15 % study IT and 10 % work in IT-related fields. This paper deals with the professional transit of this underprivileged group into the IT field (a typically male field). The results are interpreted on the basis of a two-year program of the Digital Academy from Czechitas focusing on retraining 300 women (mainly women on and after maternity leave and fresh university graduates) for technical positions in 2017 and 2018 in the Czech Republic. Czechitas is young Czech organisation which help women, girls, children but also parents and teachers to explore the world of information technologies through workshops and long-term courses on different levels of expertise, focused on particular knowledge or technology. Czechitas are focusing on new approaches to helping people identify and develop skills that are relevant for high-demand jobs. Through their existence they have realized that for the successful career transit into computing fields there is a need to empower and equip women with a complex system of hands-on technical workshops and also well designed concept of soft skills trainings.
Oral session 2.6 - Social justice
Supported Employment: Facilitating Inclusion and Career Engagement to Overcome Marginalization
Roberta NeaultC1.06 Gömör
Although the career development sector has always valued social justice, in recent years the notion of inclusion has expanded to encompass individuals who may have previously been considered unemployable. Employment barriers may include, but are not limited to, physical and cognitive limitations or developmental delays, mental health concerns, substance use/abuse issues, and environmental sensitivities. In the spirit of inclusion, many countries such as Canada have implemented “one stop” career/employment services intended to be accessible and welcoming to all clients. However, not all career development practitioners have the specialized training and experience required to facilitate the effective workplace inclusion of such diverse clients.
The focus of this paper will be the emerging role of supported employment specialists as a bridge between diverse clients and organizations ready to contribute to an inclusive society. To begin, the current philosophical foundations of “employment first” and “employment for all” are introduced. The Career Engagement model (Neault & Pickerell, 2019) serves as a conceptual framework for understanding and facilitating meaningful and motivating work for all. The impact of an increasing level of precarious employment is also examined.
Career development practitioners require additional knowledge, skills, and attitudes to function effectively as Supported Employment Specialists; these go beyond the core competencies identified in professional standards and guidelines or competency frameworks, A recent Canadian partnership between a professional association, mental health commission, and a career development training organization addressed this need by combining their expertise to create an e-learning opportunity to develop foundational competencies for supported employment specialists. Beginning with an environmental scan, the project was informed, shaped, and piloted by a “Community of Practice” working group. It is anticipated that accessible and affordable training for supported employment specialists will facilitate greater and more sustainable workforce inclusion for some of the most vulnerable and marginalized members of society.
Workshop 2.1
The baby and the bathwater: career guidance and innovative matching instruments
Jouke PostC1.07 Horehronie
In this workshop we will explore innovative and adaptive ways of matching people with jobs in the context of a Dutch policy initiative aimed at the skills mismatch in the region of Amsterdam, called ‘the House of Skills’. In this project career development plays an important role, although it is organized in a more systemic and network-centric way, in which various stakeholders work together on sustainable careers.
The workshop will consist of three components. We start with ‘setting the scene’: a compact presentation of the main objectives of this policy initiative. Then we ‘zoom in’ on a specific set of pilots, related to skills mismatch, that aims to innovate the matching routines of partners in the network by searching for and experimenting with a digital and data-driven skills- or competency-based approach. We will see that the emphasis at the demand side of the labour market changes from occupations to tasks and skills (World Economic Forum, 2019). Consequently, skills will increasingly prove to be a relevant element in matching people with jobs and turn out to be a suitable proxy for advanced and tailormade career guidance, enabling job-seekers to discover effective and appropriate reskilling pathways and job transitions opportunities. We will study some concrete examples: how does this work in guidance and counseling and what does this mean for our instruments and profession?
The third and important component will be to ‘zoom out’: we will have a critical and hopefully inspiring discussion on the matching theory and Person-Environment (P-E) model. Because there is always this central tension in guidance: fit for whom (Moore, Gunz & Hall, 2007)? The challenging question is therefore: how can we as profession benefit from this concept of fit, and use it in contemporary ICT-driven ways that can help people become more agentic in their career?
Workshop 2.2
The Existential Dimension in Group Counselling – How to Use LEGO Bricks as a Scaffolding Tool
Charlotte Juhl-Nielsen & Grethe Fogh NielsenC1.08 Šariš
The aim of this workshop is both to present the conclusions from research completed in Denmark in 2018 and to show how LEGO bricks can work as a scaffolding tool to support the existential dimension in group counselling.
Through video recordings and focus group interviews the focus of the research was to investigate the significance of the existential dimension in group counselling for young people who have been assessed as ‘not ready for education’.
The research question was defined around the vitalization psychology as it is presented by Professor Jan Tønnesvang (Tønnesvang 2015a) and read: How does career counsellors work with the existential dimension in group counselling and which elements are significant for it to become:
1. A process that gives young people faith in themselves and their plan (“need for autonomy”) (Tønnesvang 2015b).
2. A process that makes sense to the young people (“need for meaning”, ibid.).
3. A process that promotes the young people’s coping (“need for competence”, ibid.).
4. A process that supports the young people’s belongings in the group (“need for relatedness”, ibid.)
One conclusion from the research was that all the young people preferred group counselling over individual counselling but when the counsellors moved into the existential dimension it was difficult for the young people to reflect and give detailed answers. In such situations they needed their counsellors to facilitate and scaffold the activities.
One successful scaffolding tool we observed in the video recordings were the use of LEGO EDUCATION. A special box of LEGO bricks which are used to jump start the young people’s reflection and to share their ideas and thoughts.
In the workshop it will therefore also be possible to work with LEGO and to discuss the advantages and challenges with this scaffolding tool as to support the existential dimension in group counselling.
Workshop 2.3
Is society inclusive for older workers?
Lyn Barham & Marie Inger BakkeC1.09 Zemplén
Most guidance activities are aimed at young people or at adults who are going through education or employment transitions. With an ageing population, this will have to change. If guidance services do not take into account the particular situation and needs of older workers, then we have a double loss: loss for the individual of the benefits of working and making a secure transition to retirement, and unnecessary loss to national economies of much needed skills.
This workshop will explore two perspectives on older workers’ needs. One is the findings from a small-scale Norwegian research project involving older female academics, who experienced little interest or respect from others towards the end of their lengthy devotion to their career. The other perspective is larger scale trialling of mid-life career interventions in the UK which gives indication of the training needs of career guidance professionals delivering such reviews, and an outline of proposed training materials. Underlying both perspectives is the desire of older workers for respect from others for their life experience and work contributions, and a desire to find ways of integrating three key concerns: maintaining good health; planning for a financially viable retirement pension; continuing paid employment until ready for transition into satisfying activities in retirement.
Whilst governments address the need to retain skills and reduce state pension costs, our profession should have wider concerns. Older workers are our future; each one of us will become an older worker, and our countries will have larger percentages of older workers. Supporting older workers’ needs in the last decades of working life affects social inclusion and wellbeing into oldest age.
Workshop 2.4
Creative arts as a tool for career development and education
Helena Koštálová & Lenka Nemcová & Eva KavkováC1.10 Zips
This interactive workshop will introduce the possible benefits and challenges of using creative methods such as visual arts (craft, photography, film, collages), drama and storytelling in individual and group career guidance. The main objective is to share our good practice with multidisciplinarity in career guidance and open a discussion about the application of creative arts into career guidance.
Creativity plays a vital role in constructivist approaches to career guidance. Individuals are not the only ones who should be creative in their career planning (Peiperl et al.,2002), also career counsellors are encouraged to use creativity in their work (e.g., Amundson, 1998, Peavy,2004). The incorporation of creative arts into the counselling process is one of the possible ways how to strengthen clients’ creativity and support them in discovering new perspectives. According to our experience however, this creative approach using arts is still received with mixed feelings and many doubts by career counsellors in the Czech Republic.
The first part of the workshop will introduce the methodological background, the benefits and the challenges of applying art therapy methods into the career guidance process. The main focus will be in introducing the connection between art and drama therapy techniques and our clients’ self-knowledge improvement and skills development. We will present examples of our good practice in incorporating creative methods while counselling different target groups (unemployed adults, parents on maternity leave, migrants and children). The second part of the workshop will be practical – participants will try some techniques focused on creativity development. The workshop will end with a reflection of their experience by participants and a discussion about the possible ways of incorporating creative methods into their daily practice.