Guidance Handbook introduction and contents

CareerSteer – career test for career choice www.careersteer.org

Guidance Handbook

Cole Davis

Original formatting and illustrations by Lorna Raeburn.

Typesetting by Judith Coles of ADEPT of Norwich

(Anglian Design and Encapsulation)

Cole Davis studied Occupational Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London, trained in careers guidance at the College Of Guidance Studies and has worked with adults and adolescents, as well as assessing practitioners and developing CareerSteer,

the free career test for career choice.

Comments and requests to the author; email: coledavis@hotmail.com

Dedicated to the memory of my mother

Irene Deborah Davis

— Contents –

1 Guidance Handbook - introduction

2 Equal opportunities

3 Exercises relating to equal opportunities

4 The Guidance Interview - techniques

5 Exercises relating to interviews

6 The Psychology of Guidance

7 Models of Guidance

8 Exercises relating to Psychology/Models of Guidance

9 Evaluating and developing your own work

10 Group Work - Introduction

11 Group work - practice recommendations

12 Exercises relating to group work

13 CVs - general points

14 Applications, supporting statements and personal statements

15 A suggestion for dealing with career choice

16 Labour Market Trends

17 Suggested reading

1 Guidance Handbook - INTRODUCTION

Who is this for?

This publication was originally designed to assist careers and educational guidance practitioners studying for the NVQ4 in Guidance by distance learning at Bournville College, Birmingham. The text was widened to some extent to become more meaningful to other guidance workers (counselling, advice, rehabilitation, etc), but reading of specialist texts is still recommended for technical content.

What does it do?

Firstly, this provides a foundation of knowledge relating to human, especially adult, development, models of guidance and issues surrounding interviewing and group working. It should be emphasised that this should not exclude other forms of learning, including in-house training or supervision; interview and group work skills are unlikely to be developed from a book, independently of direct practice. It is also recommended that discussions should take place with tutors relating to how theory is applied to practice.

Secondly, it discusses some technical areas relating to jobsearch, e.g. cv’s and supporting statements.

Thirdly, the exercises after most chapters suggest ways of drawing from the content to provide knowledge evidence for courses. (N.b. careers workers wishing to enable transferability to the Careers Service should include optional units relating to group work and ‘liaising with opportunity providers’, which is why these areas have had some input in the text). These may be used as tutors and students see fit or used for stimulating discussion.

In all cases, this is intended as a quick accessible read, but not a replacement for more in-depth study. In order to avoid the length and weight of some tomes, this is neither comprehensive nor value-free. The theories and techniques described, however, have proved useful when practising and imparting skills to others. This edition has been edited, January 2008, for SEO purposes.

What doesn’t it cover?

In particular, specialist legislation and localised data. Also, content about welfare and other specialist areas. It is still the responsibility of the candidate to ensure that evidence is covered, and that of the assessor to examine its validity, reliability and sufficiency.

Who is the author?

A careers adviser, psychometrician and guidance assessor. Other activities include developing a computerised free career test, CareerSteer, for assisting people with career choice, as well as technical writing.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ann Mühlenbock, guidance tutor at Bournville College, for reviewing this text and encouraging the author to keep writing. Thanks are also due to Lorna Raeburn for her work on the lay-out and diagrams, never the author’s strong points, and Don Warman for his usual outsider’s once-over.

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