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Monday 26 June 2023

Canadian career development research

Having attended the CANNEXUS conference earlier this year, I took part in an interesting session which - while it was not directly applicable to my practice - did expose me to a couple of Canadian reports which I had not yet encountered (Vandegriend, 2023).

Firstly a great report focusing on labour market information (LMI) and how Canadian adults engaged - or did not engage - in career development services during the early stages of the pandemic. It was fascinating that men were nearly a quarter more likely to seek out services than women; that those with tertiary qualifications, OR new Canadians, OR those who were unemployed, were nearly a third more likely to use career services. What was also interesting was that many reported LMI gaps in their career interaction. A result of the research was that there are under-served sectors of the population who would benefit from career development (CD) services, but who are not yet engaging. The data from this survey would have provided the Canadian government with some really valuable information (LMIC, 2021).

Secondly, a report on the benefits of career development, and how it is "critical for both continued labour force attachment and for supporting sustainable economic growth" (Irwin et al., 2021, p. 2). Again, this report shows that those in under-served sectors are those possibly least likely to access career development services. This work identifies some of the access barriers and provides some potential solutions (Irwin et al., 2021):

  1. CD needs a "whole-of-person" approach
  2. More awareness of the benefits and greater visibility of CD is needed
  3. Use technology more
  4. Results must be measured for the Government to see actual payback over time

The latter point reminds me of what a lecturer of mine used to say: "what we measure is what we get". We need good measures. We need a measurement tool to trap our data. We need an EASY way to get sensible information out of the tool which stores our data without lots of additional manipulation. Otherwise we are garbage in for garbage out (Von Bertalanffy, 1968).

And that brings me to some other work: a tool for measuring the impact of career development services developed by a consortium of Canadian researchers (Bezanson et al., 2022). This tool, called PRIME, is a database which stores practitioner notes of client employability outcomes over time: a "employability assessment tool developed by the [Canadian Career Development Foundation] to collect and analyze data on a wide[...] and [...] diverse set of client outcomes" (Irwin et al., 2021, p. 39). This is such a good idea.

We need something like this here in Aotearoa: a way to capture and store our client's progress, based on our client's goals, and on what they see as being success.


Sam

References:

Bezanson, L., Pickerell, D., Hopkins, S. (2022). Career Services: Impact, Proof & New Evidence [video]. CANNEXUS22 Virtual Conference 25 January - 5 February 2022. https://cannexus22.gtr.pathable.com/meetings/virtual/rqzQwjg2CvrC4TnYF

Irwin, J., Lipsey, A., Coronel, S. (2021). Breaking Down Barriers to Career Development [report]. Future Skills Centre. https://global-uploads.webflow.com/5f80fa46a156d5e9dc0750bc/619541ed3bd3e372f26a21d9_FSC-RCP-Barriers-Nov17-BL.pdf

LMIC. (2021). Are Adults Making Use of Career Services in Canada: An Insight Report from the Labour Market Information Council and the Future Skills Centre [report]. Labour Market Information Council. https://fsc-ccf.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Are-Adults-Making-Use-of-Career-Services-in-Canada-LMIC-FSC_EN.pdf

Vandegriend, K. (2023). Why Communicating What You Do Matters [video]. CANNEXUS23 Conference 23-25 January 2023. https://cannexus23.gtr.pathable.com/meetings/virtual/aHL5uvYwxuY7Dtvx3

Von Bertalanffy, L. (1968). General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. George Braziller.

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