Professional Standards for Career Advisors

Career Pathways Colleagues:

I'm trying to locate examples of professional standards for career advisors in adult education, not career development standards for students in adult education of which I've found a lot of examples, but rather professional standards for those in the role of career advisor/counselor in adult education. If anyone has a resource for this and is willing to share, please post to the career pathways community. Thanks for any assistance you can provide and have a great day.

Jeff Fantine

Comments

I'd like to suggest that responses to Jeff's question be sent to this discussion rather than to Jeff personally.  I think others will appreciate any resources that are shared, and there may even be some individual expertise that could be shared with the community.  Thanks! 

Colleagues,

I realize I am 3 months late (and a few dollars short?) but maybe these references will still be helpful to some. Must have been on the road when Jeff's question first came in and I missed it. Here are some documents that have been helpful to me in developing training for career coaches, college and career navigators, ABE advisors, etc.

National Career Development Assoc (NCDA) competencies - 

http://ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sp/facilitator_overview_competencies

National Assoc of Workforce Development Professionals (NAWDP) competenices - http://www.nawdp.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Certification/CWDPEndorsementCompetencyAreas/NewCWDPCompetencies_2013.pdf

Mass ABE Counseling Task Force Recommendations (not specific to career coaching) - http://www.doe.mass.edu/acls/sp/TFrecommendation.pdf

Jeff,

I am currently workings as a Transition Coach in an Adult Education program in Hutchinson, KS.  I am the first in my position and struggled to find standards when I first started my job.  I have been doing it for a while now and feel like I have asked a lot of questions and pieced together many different parts of the puzzle to find what I consider to be a fairly good process/program/standard.  I recently (2012) presented at the NCWE conference about the benefits of having/being a Transition Coach and what I "really" do! I have also facilitated our state Transition Coordinators meeting.  I'd love to share any information I have that could be helpful to you.  Let me know what specifics you are looking for and I will be more than happy to help any way I can!


Stephanie Dreiling

Transition Coach

Hutchinson Community College

Hutchinson, KS

Thanks Stephanie:

I'm trying to determine if there are professional standards that exist for career advisors/counselors in adult education as I haven't been able to find them, so wondered if a resource exists that I'm not aware of that may have these standards or maybe someone had developed them.  When you presented at NCWE did you discuss professional standards?  If so, I'd like to see your presentation or at least know what standards you may have shared.  Now that you've been in the role for a while, what do you think career advisors need to know and be able to do in order to be effective?  Any assistance around professional standards would be most appreciated.  Thanks and have a great day!

Jeff

Thanks for responding, Stephanie.  Is there a way to share your presentation at NCWE with the Career Ladder Community?  Do you have a text copy or a powerpoint?  I think transition coaches are a very powerful tool to help our "persons of interest" to acclimate to the college setting, and the first-hand experience and expertise of those who do this job is helpful and inspiring.  Please share whatever you can.

I will be more than happy to share my Power Point.  Anyone who wants a copy can email me at dreilings@hutchcc.edu and I will send back a copy.  I don't have it posted online anywhere.  Since I did a presentation with it the slides are a vague outline but I would be more than happy to speak with anyone or answer any questions they have.  I have also created a Transition Handbook for our students (it is specific to our College) that I would be willing to share.  It is great for students about to have their first college experience.

Hi Stephan,

A very generous offfer; I could use the Powerpoint and perhaps some information from your Transition Handbook.  I am an Adult Education Instructor in Lapeer Michigan.  I also have an unofficial role as "Navigator" for our Adult ed students.  Your information would be very valuable to our program.

Thanks,

Hal Greblo

Hi folks,

in Pennsylvania we have developed an outline for career coaching as a component of case management for our adult education providers.  The outline, along with supporting resources, can be found on the Career Pathways web site found below. We have also been providing informational webinars about the components of coaching and the archived materials are also available on the site.  We are  in the final development stages of an online companion resource that helps to fill out the original outline.  

We have presented information about this particular aspect of our work at numerous regional and state conferences.  Just yesterday it was presented at the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals Conference in Minneapolis.  While the content was identified for adult education case managers, our partners have been enthusiastic about the work and we are hopeful that it will be shared and used widely throughout Pennsylvania.

http://www.paadultedresources.org/program-resources.html

KayLynn Hamilton

Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy

Penn State

Thanks KayLynn - the website is a great resource, thanks for sharing it!!  Lots of great work in this area in PA.  I'm curious to know if there is further guidance on how you use the Career Coaching Components? 

Jeff Fantine

We are in the middle of a webinar series that gives some guidance on interventions.  The archived webinars are on the web site as well.  We have been encouraging folks to work with their partners...that the case managers/career coaches do not have to know everything about everything, but know where the information is available and share with students.  We had one agency that immediately shared it with one-stop partners and now they work together to cover the elements.  Our next step is to identify some additional 'promising practices' from the field so that we can continue to add to this model from the ground up.

KayLynn

I'd like to second Jeff's recommendation of the Pennsylvania Adult Education website.  The whole website can be found at http://www.paadultedresources.org/program-resources.html      In addition to the resources linked to on that page, there is a link to a whole section on Career Pathways.  The direct link is http://www.paadultedresources.org/career-pathways.html.  You'll need to spend some time on these pages to realize just how rich they are!

Jeff-I would suggest contacting Scott Kemp at Virginia Community College System (VCCS).  He is working on an adult career coaches program and may have lots of research to share with you.  Good luck and post anything of importance that you find.  Debbie Mills

We worked with the Accelerating Opportunity initiative to develop a free online course for Navigators.

Finding True North - Role of the Navigatoridentifies the types of supports that adult learners need to be truly prepared for college and careers and introduces the core functions and responsibilities of a navigator. It also introduces the core competencies of effective navigators, advising approaches and styles, and Navigator program design elements to consider. I think it will be quite helpful in your work.

Course Registration link. 

Best, 

Priyanka Sharma 

Hi Jeff - I wonder if any of the professional standards for transition professionals, developed by the Council for Exceptional Children, Division on Career Development & Transition could be helpful. These practice standards related to professionals providing career guidance to students with disabilities as they leave highschool - but, overall, they might be applicable. I believe that these competencies are currently being updated.

 

http://www.dcdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/DCDT_Fact_Sheet_Compentencies_3.pdf