Innovation, Innovation, Innovation

I went to a great workshop yesterday, about ‘Innovation in the workplace’ organised by social enterprise London and facilitated by KPMG.  Interestingly, the facilitator was actually a tax advisor employed by KPMG who had a great teaching style!  I was struck by how ‘innovative’ it is of the organisation to utilise staff in this way – maximising skills and perhaps even aiding retention by offering diversity and a ‘break from the norm’ (the extremely plush building in Canary Wharf signalled that this was not an efficiency saving!).  I went along because I have been reflecting recently on the need for creativity and innovative thinking and action in the austere times that we face.  The research collaborators in my own doctoral study about collaborative working between statutory and non-statutory sectors, have spoken about the need to be responsive and flexible and creative whilst as one of them stated “keeping your balance on a floating raft”.  It seems that human capital is a valuable currency, more so now than ever – when financial currency is scarce and we are expected to do ‘more for less’.  Doing more for less would surely necessitate innovative thinking and thinking outside of our own norms?  Participants in the workshop spoke about innovation defining their own random thinking and some key ‘behaviours’ that were conveyed as necessitating innovative thinking included ‘bravery’ and ‘playfulness’.  Perhaps the current climate has prompted a step change…that whilst cautious spending is inevitable, creativity could be invited, initiated, nurtured, embraced and valued.  Innovation perhaps is less about doing or being anything else but is about drawing on the playful, creative, unself-conscious parts of us and letting go of the restrictive messages about what we can and cannot and should and should not do in our respective professional fields.

Jo Oliver

Personal Reflections - The Need for Careers Education

Now that my children have left school; one in the final year of a degree course and one in a gap year, I am having some interesting discussions with them about career and how poorly they feel that they were prepared for the choices that they now have to make. Now I like to think that I did my best to plug the gaps in their careers education and guidance but we all know that supporting our own is a very different business to that of supporting others. I did my best to make sure that they knew about alternatives to their own school sixth form and to going on to University. None-the-less they both chose to stay on into the sixth form and to go to University and honestly I had no problem with those decisions. However it is clear to them both now that progression onto higher education was expected by their school and by their peers. Although the ‘odd’ person didn’t do so it was the natural next step. However, like perhaps many young people now they are acutely aware of the financial cost of higher education and that the challenge to ‘get in’ is far from the end of the story. Many of their friends have found themselves unhappy and unprepared at University, in particular those who didn’t take a gap year. Those coming to the end of their degrees are anxious and often unclear what to do next. Now I know that university careers services do a brilliant job but I imagine that they too wish that young people were better prepared for this launch into the world of work. Quite basic things seem to be missing such as good, reflective self awareness, and an understanding of the complexities of the world of work.


As government thinking focuses on what might be described as ‘back to basics’ and less support is given to personal development learning, including career learning in the curriculum, I can only imagine that this situation will get worse. The Browne Report made it clear that impartial guidance was crucial for those deciding on a University degree, especially those paying up to £9,000 pa in tuition fees. However let us not forget that unless we prepare young people well for that guidance and for those decisions it will be left to University careers services to deal with the fall out. Now more that ever before careers professionals need to ensure that young people have every opportunity to learn about themselves and about their opportunities, statutory or not.

Anne Chant

Conference on 5th May 2011

I am on the organising group that is currently planning planning a conference for the centre on 5th May this year. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to ‘blog’ about it. There are some really useful conferences planned for this year around the country and at a time of such uncertainty in the field of careers, particularly in England, such events have never been more important. Many will focus on the emerging all-age guidance service and others on the increased need for expertise in careers education. Although we have included a 'state of the nation' key note from Tony Watts who will reflect on these crucial changes, the focus of the conference is a little different.

The title ‘Vocation, vocation, vocation: placing meaning in the foreground of career decision making’ gives a flavour for this ‘back to our roots’ theme which is rather nicely illustrated on the front of the programme. The thought behind this, when we first began to plan the event in 2010, was that a healthy root system is essential for a plant and also for a profession. No matter how the context for our practice is ‘pruned’ or indeed cut back rather hard, it is the health of the roots, ethics and values of our profession that will ensure that we continue to grow. A quotation from Theodore Roethke ‘Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light’ is used to capture this concept and I certainly can’t think of a better way to say it!

Take a look at the conference brochure via the following link and perhaps I’ll see you there.

Anne Chant

http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/education/career-and-personal-development/events/Conference2011.aspx

Education as a route to acquiring voice?

In his ‘foreward’ to Paulo Friere’s ‘Pedagogy of the oppressed’, Richard Shaul acknowledges the ‘culture of silence’ and the role of education as a route to ‘acquiring voice’ and a recent interview I engaged with for my EdD, has inspired me to reflect on my role as an educator, as a researcher and as a narrator.  I wonder how much of who I am, how I am and what I think and do promotes the acquisition of voice within others, particularly those who belong to a socially oppressed group. 

Friere refers to ‘conscientizcáo’ and presents that the perceived caveat of procuring forums for these perhaps otherwise unheard voices is that the critical consciousness will instigate anarchy. As the oppressed and the oppressors are engaged in an interchange, this so-called inevitable ‘destructive fantacism’ is just as readily a ‘fear of freedom’.  In reflecting upon my own contribution to and perhaps even my obligation to this, I consider that it is about what we do and also about what we do not do to encourage critical consciousness.  

Referring to a video about racism I saw as part of my basic youth work training many years ago, ‘Me feel it’, much of what restricts and oppresses the voices of others happens silently, covertly and sometimes unintentionally.  The person I interviewed for my study stated that: ‘…me as a black person growing up in a white society and having to experience what I have and a lot of other black people have experienced these things…for me to sit in a class room now and listen to some of these phrases and some of these references, I’m thinking ‘ how out of date is it’ you know and what is it, what makes it right for us to follow these people’s processes by the letter?’. 

A final thought, drawing on Friere’s assertions is the importance of perceiving ‘the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform’.  I hope that my own critical awareness will help to fuel the necessary transformation in my own work, because if education is a route to acquiring voice, then we as educators need to examine the interpersonal, contextual and material in a bid to open the necessary doors to ease this exit.

Jo Oliver

All Change and All-Age

Our Minister of State for Education, John Hayes announced the New All-Age Careers Service on Nov 4th 2010 and during his speech made the following statement:


‘A single, unified careers service would provide major benefits in terms of transparency and accessibility. And a single service with its own unique identity would have more credibility for people within it as well as users than the more fragmented arrangements that are currently in place.

There are a range of other benefits, including the ability to support young people more effectively during their transition to adulthood. And that’s why creating an all-age service will be one of my and my Departments’ most important tasks over the coming months and years.

As we go about this, it’s important to recognise that we’re not starting from scratch. On the contrary, we will build on Next Step, and on Connexions because we must not lose the best of either’.


In advocating this, I am certainly under no illusions about the Spending Review settlement. But if we are going to create the sort of comprehensive guidance service that I and many others think we need, then we will simply have to do more with less’

Fine words—but how does this relate to reality?

Take, for a start, not wanting to lose the best of Connexions. What I actually see is Connexions centres with large CLOSED notices scrawled across their premises, careers advisers pulled out of schools and many receiving redundancy notices. If the careers advisers are not in the schools and the Centres are disappearing, I do wonder how this can be keeping the best of Connexions?

Secondly, there is the ominous ‘doing more with less’. Is this actually possible? Well, given the wonders of modern technology, the Minister may actually be lucky with this one. My own experience of delivering telephone guidance for the Open University opened my eyes to just how effective this can be and it is certainly a more economical option, both for the client and guidance company, than face to face. So with an innovative approach, utilising the latest advances in technology ( I am not suggesting that the telephone falls into this category!) I believe Mr Hayes may ( just) have a chance of genuinely achieving more with less!

During his speech he also emphasised the need to continue to improve the status of the profession and the need for continuing professional development. This has to be good, and is already happening with the new LLUK Level 6 Diploma for adult guidance professionals and the Task Force recommendation of level 7 qualifications as the standard within 5 years.

Another theme was the partnership he expected to see between professional guidance practitioners and the schools who will be able to buy their services in. It was clear that he feels strongly that schools should buy in independent, impartial, professional career guidance for their pupils, however, it also was obvious that who the school purchase this from will be the decision of the individual school. In my opinion this will lead to a very variable provision with only some schools being prepared to pay for quality provision for all pupils, especially if they have to do this out of reduced budgets.

So what do the changes really mean?

John Hayes’ speech demonstrated that he is a champion of change to a better, more professional career guidance provision for all ages of client but the worry is that he may well be thwarted by the present funding cuts and other s in power that do not have his own convictions .

Time will tell.

Please click on the above title to link to the ICG website where you can read or listen to the John Hayes speech in full.

Barbara Shottin

Careers on the political agenda!

Well done Esther McVey MP for getting an adjournment debate in the House of Commons (13 January 2011) on the subject of careers advice in schools. This was set in the context of the wider debate about careers advice for all ages. It was heartening to find that many MPs recognise the need for young people to get high quality, impartial careers advice from professionally qualified Careers Advisers.

Several MPs raised questions about the transition to the new all-age service, specifically about how it can be staffed when so many advisers face redundancy as a result of spending cuts in local authorities. John Hayes, Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills, was there to respond. I would like to quote from an exchange towards the end of the debate:

Andrew Miller: Given that the Connexions company locally has effectively been told to wind itself up, it will, by necessity, have to put people on notice of possible dismissal

Mr Hayes: Local authorities will retain a duty to provide the service and the new all-age service will begin to kick in from this autumn, so any hiatus of the kind that the hon. Gentleman suggests is present should not be significant. I hope that local authorities would put in place arrangements to ensure that those people involved could move from one service to the other reasonably seamlessly. If he takes that message to his local authority with my endorsement, it may yield more fruit.

Am I alone in thinking that the Minister is in danger of closing the stable door after the horse has been driven out to pasture? The message to local authorities certainly doesn’t, from what I hear around the country, seem to have got through!

Alison Fielding

Is it just me .....?

Is it just me, or are others out there questioning the sense in decimating services that in recent years have done exemplary work in supporting the most vulnerable young people in our society?

Of course, I am aware that tough decisions have to be made concerning how money is spent at a time when the UK is facing unprecedented levels of National debt. But.... it seems to me short sighted in the extreme, to cut the very services that have been working tirelessly to encourage disengaged young people to take a more proactive role in our society and make their own contributions to the economic growth of the nation.

I’m left wondering what will happen to the numerous young people who have engaged actively with Connexions PAs . Young people who, to a large extent as a result of the hard work of those dedicated professionals, have been enabled to aspire to an alternative life style. A lifestyle that they might previously have thought impossible or not known how to achieve for themselves.

We should, perhaps, remind ourselves of the key reasons that the Connexions service was developed in the first place. Are those young people most at risk of disengagement, anti-social behaviour, criminal activity, long term unemployment, teenage pregnancy or NEET, simply going to disappear with the services that were formed to support them? I think not. And that is why I would urge all those professionals who have worked so hard, with such dedication to encourage the young people in greatest need, to make changes in their lives, not to be discouraged. Take time to reflect on and celebrate the results that you have achieved. And hold on in there. Your skills and expertise have not become redundant. Sadly, as funding continues to be cut across the public sector, the need for qualified professionals able to engage with the hardest to help in our society, is likely to increase in the next few years, not go away.

Jane Westergaard