Career development for youth: we can do better!
- Sareena Hopkins and Lynne Bezanson
Highlights from the presentation
Sareena Hopkins and Lynne Bezanson, from the Canadian Career Development Foundation, presented 'Career development for youth: we can do better!' at the Transforming Careers, Unleashing Potential International Careers Conference, which was held in Wellington on 19-21 November 2009.
Career development curricula delivery for youth
Developed to:
- assess the effectiveness of traditional ways of delivering school-based career education
- build career resilience with teens and their parents outside the classroom setting
- create opportunity for dialogue and two-way learning between students (via focus groups) and the programme co-ordinators.
Students in the focus groups in their first year of tertiary study said that while in high school they:
- had a lack of career clarity and direction
- felt unmotivated and disconnected from their learning
- felt paralysed by the pressure and expectations of parents, teachers and society to "decide"
- received either no career guidance in school or did not make the connection between career lessons and their own lives.
The same types of students would have liked:
- to have been more prepared for living away from family and friends
- to have been taught the skills needed to cope with multiple roles
- to have been exposed to the academic realities of campus life
- more volunteer/work/life experiences to prepare them for their transition to tertiary study.
Workshops for parents and their teens
Having taken on board what was important to young people and their parents in career development, Hopkins and Bezanson created four, two-hour workshops for parents and their teens focusing on:
- relationship building
- forming career alliances
- broadening horizons through opportunity awareness
- presenting examples of real-life scenarios
- building resilience.
Key messages
- Hopkins and Bezanson remind us not to just ask young people once about their needs, but to keep asking them on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be a long questionnaire; just six questions can quickly establish their needs.
- Focus on the journey, a Hi-Five principle (from The Real Game) well known in most Canadian schools. The message is fine but expect the journey to take some time.
- Interview parents and discover their concerns for their teens. How could we as career practitioners help parents start engaging careers conversations with their teens?
- Pay attention to children from a young age. Observe: 'What can’t they stop themselves from doing?' Is it drawing, or building with Lego, because if it is, this will one day play a part in their career preferences.
- What as career professionals could we do differently to reach more young people and their parents? Consider evening sessions away from a school setting, weekend workshops and distance delivery using technology.
