The Battle Over Career Guidance: The Slowest Gunfight in Political History?

I’ve just published an article in the Huffington Post.

Over the weekend, Tristram Hunt, the shadow Education Secretary, was grandstanding on career guidance. According to Hunt, we need to do something about the aspirations of young women “girls can be taught they can be architects or they can be engineers or they can be doctors, beginning at primary school”. Hunt, is right, or at least partially right, career education in England’s schools isn’t good enough. However, this is true for both girls and boys and at primary and secondary level.

…Read more

When should children start to think about careers?

I’ve just published a new article in The Conversation.

Labour’s shadow education minister Tristram Hunt argued recently for the introduction of career education into primary schools, particularly for girls. But should we start talking about the world of work at primary school or is this far too early to be meaningful or appropriate?

… Read more

Online career support and positive mental health

I’ve recently been thinking about career guidance and mental health. One of the questions that I’ve particularly got interested in is whether it is possible to offer online career guidance/career support in a way that (1) supports individuals to maintain positive mental health e.g. by keeping them engaged in work and learning and supporting them to progress and improve job quality; and (2) whether people who are experiencing mental health issues ever turn to career guidance for support and whether when they do they look for online support.

I’d be really interested if anyone had any examples of policy, practice or research that addressed any of this. Let me know if you do.

Online research methods for mental health

I published an article a few years ago looking at the use of online research methods in mental health.

I have just agreed for a version of it to be posted on our University’s website. So you can now read it even if you haven’t got a copy of the book.

Hooley, T., Wellens, J., Madge, C. & Goss S. (2010). Online Research Methods for Mental Health. In: Anthony, K, Mertz Nagel, D and Goss, S (eds.) The Use of Technology In Mental Health: Applications, Ethics and Practice. Springfield: Charles C Thomas.

The evidence for the impact of good quality career guidance

Tomorrow I’m giving a presentation to providers who offer careers quality awards that are endorsed through the Quality in Careers Standard.

The presentation will be largely based on our report for the Sutton Trust – Advancing Ambitions: The Role of Career Guidance in Supporting Social Mobility.

This is what I thought that I’d cover.

• Presentation: The evidence for the impact of good quality career guidance

I’m hoping to finish up with a discussion about where we need to take the evidence base next in England.

Indian Journal of Career and Livelihood Planning

The latest issue [Vol 3(1)] of the Indian Journal of Career and Livelihood Planning has just been released.

It is well worth a read and offers a number of interesting and different perspectives from some of the careers journal’s based in the West.

The Indian Journal is also calling for contributions for its next issue.

Career image survey to close

We have been undertaking a survey looking at career professionals’ attitudes to “career image”. In essence we are interested in whether those who provide advice on career and learning and employment choices ever talk about how clients look or should look as part of their practice.

We are closing the survey at the end of February, so if you haven’t filled it in yet we’d really like to hear from you.

Fill in the career image survey

Opportunity at Teach First to work on careers and employability

We’ve recently been doing some work with Teach First to look at the role that teachers can play in supporting young people’s careers. We’ll be releasing a new report in early March. However, Teach First are hoping to take this work forward with a new project looking at careers and employability.

They are hoping to recruit a new post (Senior Officer, Employability – Programme – Community Impact) to take this work forward. So I thought that I’d post this to highlight the job opportunity to readers of the blog.

How Can Ethics in Guidance Respond to the Challenges Created by Information and Communication Technology?

I’ve noticed a really interesting looking webinar on ethics, career guidance and ICT.

It will be led by Professor James P. Sampson Jr. (Florida State University and also Visiting Professor to iCeGS). He will be giving a presentation entitled “How Can Ethics in Guidance Respond to the Challenges Created by Information and Communication Technology?” on Tuesday 17 February 2015 at 8:15-9:45 (CET).

The presentation is broadcast live at  http://moniviestin.jyu.fi/ohjelmat/erillis/ktl/evokes/how-can-ethics-in-guidance-respond

The webinar will be interactive and there will be an opportunity to post questions to Prof. Sampson during the presentation.

The presentation will examine ethical issues related to the development and use of information and communication technologies in practice. Topics presented in the Webinar include evolution of ICT in guidance, social equity issues, resource issues, services issues and professional standards.

The webinar is organised by the National Centre for Lifelong Guidance Expertise (eVOKES, http://www.evokes.fi/) at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, in co-operation with the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network, ELGPN (http://elgpn.eu), The Center for the Study of Technology in Counseling and Career Development at the Florida State University (http://www.career.fsu.edu/techcenter) and the International Association for Vocational and Educational Guidance, IAEVG (http://www.iaevg.org).

The importance of good quality career guidance

Today I’m going to be presenting to the UCAS Teachers and Advisers conference.

This is what I thought that I’d talk about.

The importance of good quality career guidance