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We
should pose the question. It would be foolish to assume that conventional
solutions always work in new situations. And enabling learners in their
planning for today’s working life is, in many important respects,
a new and changing challenge. This is particularly so for people for whom
the very idea of ‘a career’ might well seem like a bad joke.
And
so the question ‘what are we going to do about careers?’ is
the running header for an on-going project in The Career-learning Café’.
A project map of material is set out below. It is launched here in January
2005; and there is more to come.
ideas for action
The project is based on an extensively up-dated model for career-learning,
called ‘CPI’. It works with three key factors for contemporary
career development:
coverage, processes, and influences:
CPI-1
- coverage: both ‘hard’ information and ‘fuzzier’
impressions figure in what career learning must cover– learning
of ‘self’ and ‘opportunity’, and also of what people
actually do, both as individuals and socially, in and about their working
roles;
CPI-2 - processes: taking account of the on-going and
multi-layered learning narratives which shape the way learners see themselves
in working life - set up in early childhood, and reaching far beyond
schooling life-long;
CPI-3 - influences: coming to sustainable and fulfilling resolutions
of what feelings urge and other people want - dynamic social-and-emotional
pressures which can crystalise into the stereotypes that most damage
people’s life-chances.
CPI
takes account of what is now known of career development and careers work,
and it suggests where that new thinking can take us:
CPI-a
- new thinking: any useful new model will be based on a broadly-based
scanning of what is known of both changing career-planning needs and
changing patterns of provision;
CPI-z - in thinking ahead: reform comes, not by discarding earlier
thinking, but by extending it and applying it to the emerging interests
of contemporary stakeholders – learners, their communities, researchers
and policy-makers.
There
are five lines of new thinking here: ‘CPI-a’,’-1’,’-2’,’-3’
& ‘-z’ . Together they form one of the two project-map
dimensions.
action from ideas
The
other project-map dimension shows how new thinking leads to reformed practice.
So, in addition to the underpinning thinking, the map also lists materials
for working on practical applications...
CPI
- ideas for action: what is the evidence for CPI? - what factors
does this evidence identify? and what directions for contemporary and
future practice does it signpost?
leading
to action...
PRO
- for programmes: what this means for how we develop and use materials
and methods – for example in IAG, progress-file work and programmes
like ‘The Real Game’;
ORG - for organisations: what does it mean for the schools-and-colleges,
the services and the centres that provide help? – in the careers-work
roles they set up, in the patterns of resource allocation they use,
and in their community-links;
HLP - for helpers: and what understanding, attitudes and skills
do learners most need to find in the people who set out to help them
in their career planning? – whether those human resources are professional
advisers, voluntary mentors or distracted teachers.
There
are impications here for what happens in our schools. And work on these
issues is commonly reflected in programmes set up by Connexions. They
are also clearly represented in the the Tomlinson report on the reform
of 14-19 curriculum and qualifications.
But
none of the learning factors identified in CPI are solely applicable to
young men and women. Some belong to childhood. And some become most pressing
in adulthood - indeed they become poignant in the later years of life.
The breadth, depth and dynamics of CPI is for all sectors of careers work
- life long.
Essex,
Southend and Thurrock Connexions has substantially supported the project.
Bill is particularly grateful to Kath Wright of EST Connexions, for
her imaginative and professional use of the ideas and for her generous
encouragement in their development.
The
material is, however wholly the responsibility of The Career-learning
Network, and should not be taken to reflect EST Connexions policy.
_______________________________________
 ___________________________
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go
straight to
project map
of resources
WHERE
NOW ?
The
project map linking you to all the available materia on 'what
are we going to do about careers?'
A
pdf version of this introduction
and the project map
New
Thinking for Connexions and Citizenship - the background thinking
for this project
An
earlier case for the The Reforming
Careers Coordinator
The most successful earlier model for this work - DOTS
more
on how the Café will move on
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