hello and thank you for watching the career development practitioner program information session my name is philip pettigrew and i am both the program coordinator and in part-time faculty in the program i took the diploma program in 2010 it was called the career and work counselor program then i worked in the industry for a number of years doing employment counseling job development self-employment programming and program management i also taught for a number of years in the program before taking on the program coordinator role and now i do both roles my goal in speaking to you today is to make sure that you have all of the information that you need to make a good choice in deciding whether this is the program for you i'm going to start with an overview of what it is we do in our work so that you have a sense of the field that you're interested in going into we will look at the overview of our work we will look at our learning outcomes in the program we will look at the various roles that you might do in this field we will have a program overview we'll talk about our industry and alumni links what it takes to be successful in the field and in the program we'll talk about application requirements and lastly i'll provide you information on how to contact us so first of all what is a career development practitioner and what do they do it really is a generic term it's actually a national designation that is used across the country and it encompasses all kinds of work and all of the different sorts of people that do that work that help others to choose manage and change careers the focus is not particularly on social work but rather on employment and planning for careers our main goal is to help people to find work that satisfies their needs their interests and uses their strengths what we do makes a massive contribution in the lives of others especially when you think about the importance that people place on work for themselves for their families and of course for their communities it really is very rewarding work to do it's rewarding because when you work with someone and help them to make good choices then they tend to be more happy and productive and of course it's a ripple effect for everyone around them basically we look at the whole person and what work means to them so although we're not social workers we can't have discussions about work and career without considering the whole person a lot of what we do depends upon the relationships that we build with our clients and our clients aren't just people who are looking for work as we are also working with our employer community and making sure that they are getting their needs met both of these sets of relationships are based on respect dignity and trust the first step in building that is to build rapport and do a needs assessment in that needs assessment we are looking at the whole person and what it is that they want to achieve or why they are coming to us by the end of the needs assessment we turn those needs into goals and then develop action plans to help people to achieve those goals it's very action orientated work so these are the things that we would do in a needs assessment first we need to know does the client have a clear career goal do they know what they want to do so perhaps that's who you are right now just trying to figure out what your career goal is if they don't have a career goal then we would be looking at career exploration and helping the person to look at themselves their interests their values their personality their aptitudes and their skills and then what kinds of occupations or work environments would be a good fit for that person and then putting the two together if the person has a clear career goal the next question is do they meet the requirements of that do they have the training the education the licenses in order to be able to do it if they don't then we may do academic advising and referrals to training if they do fit the requirements then the next question is do they know how to find and keep work nobody is born knowing how to write a good resume or ace an interview so this is where we teach clients how to do those things well once they get work then the next question is can they maintain that work in some cases people have other kinds of issues that might impact their ability to maintain employment and so we would be counseling and coaching around those issues and providing resources and referrals where needed and then we consider over the lifespan we look at managing our careers we know that in this day and age most people will not just change jobs but will change careers anywhere from five to seven times or more over the 40 or so years that they may would be in the workforce so how do you do that how do you plan your next step that would be career management and that's another form of work that we do and overarching all of these questions is does the person have personal issues that are going to impact their employability and what will be the impact it could be anything from daycare to a lack of transportation it could be does the person have a disability or other accessibility issue that is impacting their employment or are they changing careers because they're now in a recovery from substance use issues so there could be many many personal issues including mental health issues that may be impacting employability so we need to help people look at the big picture importantly it does not mean that we are going to do addictions counseling or marital counseling for example but we need to understand exactly what the person's situation is we often work with other colleagues in other helping professions for things that we are not qualified to work on so we can provide resources and referrals the beauty of this field is that you are constantly learning you will always be learning about yourself and the world work changes all the time so if you love to learn this is a great field to be in in my mind you can really see the impact of your work and you can see it pretty quickly with most people yes people may come in angry frustrated depressed and discouraged perhaps they are new to canada and they can't work in what they've done before or perhaps they've been let go from a job that they've had for many years and at the end when you work with somebody when you've done their needs assessment when you've built goals and you've helped them put plans of action into place what happens is really quite remarkable you see such a transformation in people and it's a very positive form of helping the program has nine key learning outcomes that each student should be able to demonstrate upon graduation first is that you should be able to apply evidence-based practices in advising diverse client groups secondly you should be able to utilize self-reflective and critical thinking skills to enhance counseling teaching and learning strategies with groups and individuals many of the course assessments involve self-reflection processes as part of the learning about yourself as a future career development practitioner you should also demonstrate a commitment to ongoing professional development to actively respond to changing labor markets and professional requirements as mentioned the world of work is ever-changing and you need to be current it is also expected that you will be able to integrate appropriate career information resources and tools with career and employment strategies to enable clients to meet their employment goals you should be able to perform needs assessment and develop subsequent interventions using techniques and skills that enable diverse ranges of clients to meet employment goals as part of employer engagement you will learn how to design consulting advising and teaching strategies that incorporate trends and issues in the changing labor market you will integrate technology into the full spectrum of career development processes to maximize service delivery to clients you will learn about how to adhere to relevant legislation and social policy to plan programs and interventions for clients and lastly you will use current work work search tools and strategies to facilitate successful client job search some of the things you're going to be learning discussing and practicing when doing your coursework you really need to understand trends around work and not just for the current but for the future if you're doing career exploration you'll be helping people plan for three to five years in the future so keeping up with emerging trends in both career exploration but also in job search because it changes all the time you're going to learn all the basics of how to build relationships with clients both individually and in groups and how to conduct needs assessment all of the classic skills that we use in counseling and coaching you'll need to learn the employer side of it we call that employer engagement or job development where you're actually working with employers finding out what their needs are for current hiring and upskilling of staff in this role you are looking at future trends in their work and then trying to match programs and services and clients that you have with what the employer needs are it's very important that we understand the employer's perspective not just so that we can place clients with them but also so that when we are planning with our job-seeking clients we help them to see and understand what employers are looking for what they need and where they see things going for the future so again back to the notion of trends we are a profession with a code of ethics we have national standards and guidelines for career development practitioners which are woven into our curriculum you'll be taking a course in ethics for career development practitioners and of course we'll look at professional practice and in that course we're looking at an overview to the industry and how it is structured fundamental to everything we do are our theories the theories are at the crux of everything that we do for instance if we're doing career exploration we have theories that help us to help clients to understand what we're doing when we work with most clients transition is an issue whether it's the transition from school to work from work to school from one country to another or from the country to the city transition is at the crux of everything that we do and helping clients to understand what happens when we're in transition whether we're choosing it or forced into it through career crisis like a layoff we need to help people to understand and normalize those experiences and that's the beauty of theory we have a course solely dedicated on becoming culturally and diversity competent so that when you're working with your clients you can build a relationship with people who may be quite different in their life experience of course we look at accessibility so we look at all forms of challenges that some people may face in work and of course we look at the laws underlying employment standards human rights and helping our clients to know what their protections are we have a big focus now on the use of technology and social media a number of our courses are online so you're going to develop skills there too but also in terms the whole work search part of our course of our work as social media and digital technologies are used more and more we therefore need to educate ourselves you may be delivering your services through the use of social media or other digital platforms we've seen through the pandemic that many services can be provided remotely and many of those options are likely to remain post pandemic as they've allowed us to reach new populations after learning needs assessment and some basic counseling skills in the first term you will take individual counseling and coaching in the second term in this course you're going to learn motivational interviewing you're going to learn some of the coaching techniques you're going to learn appreciative inquiry and some strengths based counseling we can do nothing without good information and resources and as you can imagine information and resources change all the time so we'll teach you how to search out resources you cannot possibly know everything there are tens of thousands of different occupations in canada you cannot know every single one of them but what you need to know is how you can access information about them and how you can teach your clients how to access information so that they are making solid decisions for their careers so that's an idea of some of the themes from the coursework that you'll be doing for a detailed list of the courses please visit the program's web page on the gdc website you will also find the most current course outlines for a more detailed view of the course outcomes topical outline and evaluation methods the term career development practitioner is a generic term for the work that people do in many different positions not everyone is going to be a counselor there are employment consultants and employment counselors career advisors career consultants and career coaches employment information specialists job developers employment and marketing consultants and workshop facilitators there are people who do outreach people who do work in community capacity building we have some former graduates who work in employee assistance programs doing career and employment work with people from their benefit packages some work in the corporate outplacement field as well so think of it as a very broad field that you don't have to get pigeonholed into one area in fact lots of people work in generalist positions where they do a bit of everything other people tend to specialize you may find that you start in one area and then depending on where you are you may be able to try out a number of other areas and of course there's always the possibility possibility to progress into supervision and management so if that's your route there's that possibility as well and likewise some are more entrepreneurial and may take on numerous different areas in that realm some people like to stay put and do one thing which is fine and other people are always looking for different chances to learn and grow and that is fine too okay so in looking at some technical details around the program the next intake for the program is september twenty twenty one we will have approximately thirty five students in the program that are made up of domestic full-time students international students and some part-time students the full-time program is one year while the part-time option takes two years to complete so if you're working in the field and looking to get a credential the part-time option may be something that you would look at by full-time program i mean one whole calendar year it is three semesters september to december january to april and may to august so you need to plan for being in school for that period of time the age range of the students is usually mid twenties to mid fifties of course it varies year to year with the student mix but it is a very nice mix because some of the older students bring a lot of their work and life experience which is really beneficial when we're talking about work issues and for those people who are more recently entering work they bring the whole notion of do i make my how do i make my first choices how do i progress in the field et cetera although the program is currently being delivered entirely online due to the pandemic the hope is that by next fall we will return to our standard and preferred format of a range of in-person hybrid and online courses there are other programs in the province that offer the same graduate certificate program and the difference for us is that we are the only one in ontario that has online and in-person courses the others are fully online courses so depending on your learning style you may find that you enjoy coming into classes in which case this is a great option for you you will still have that face-to-face with your professors and with your colleagues and for some people that's their learning style but we will also have online courses because we also know people are very busy and sometimes it's helpful to be able to do some things in your own time still meeting your deadlines but of course in your own time there are three other programs one at fanshawe college one at conestoga college and one at mohawk college those are currently all exclusively online programs we don't have any nearby competitors as none of the other colleges in the gta run this program this program does not give you specific licensing or certification beyond the college's accredited certificate there is certification as voluntary certification in ontario and four other provinces based upon the canadian standards and guidelines as a result of being this program you would meet the competency of the two courses that are required by all practitioners in the field that is ethics and theory and in addition your hours of placement or practicum hours would apply towards the hours that you are required to have the model is used in five provinces combines educational and training background and work experience so you're not going to be considered a certified career development practitioner until you actually gain field experience and if you think about it if you were a client seeking help you would want to know that the people that are certified are people who have not who have just more than knowledge in terms of individual and group work you experience both there's quite a bit of individual work but there's also group work of course you're working together with your peers when you're practicing your skills and processes and needs assessment and the individual counseling and coaching course so in those courses you'll be learning it but you'll also be doing it by working with your colleagues and actually practicing so there's a lot of practice and the same goes for group facilitation as you'll be in group and then you will lead group the third semester is completely your placement or what's called practicum it's 294 unpaid hours spread out over three days per week for a total of 14 weeks you'll also come into class one evening a week to share your learning with each other and do problem solving so that's your final semester it really is the opportunity to put everything you've learned into practice you will get a great amount of help with choosing your practicum in your first semester you will go out on a one-day job shadow which gives you an opportunity to see things happening in the field you will share that information and you'll also hear from your peers about where they went this may give you some ideas about where you want to go on your practicum you'll have a field advisor at the college who will work with you to plan what it is you want to learn from your placement then you'll interview with probably two or three places until you find a place that's right for you like every other program in the college we have what's called a program advisory committee made up of professionals from our field they work for a range of employment organizations in the gta including jvs access vpi youth employment services achieve york university career center the career foundation miziwi beak and verity international we consult with our industry partner partners throughout the year to ensure our programming is current with what's happening in the field we also link up with the many other employment related services in the gta and beyond to collaborate with for student practicum placements and sharing of information in terms of industry perceptions of this program they are thrilled that new people are coming into the field we have a lot of contact with employers and they say they cannot wait for people to graduate so that they can hire them we are well known in the industry for graduating highly capable individuals and they are well sought after in the field in addition of course there's the um alumni from our previous diploma program and subsequent certificate program many volunteer as mentors with our current students and because this is a very small program we don't expect we'll be saturating the market anytime soon so let's take a look at what it takes to be successful in the field and the program we can we can start by looking at some common misconceptions prospective students often have as i mentioned not everybody is going to be a counselor there's all kinds of different positions that you may be involved in you may think that oh i don't have a degree in social sciences so i wouldn't be able to take this program but actually it takes all types you know if you have an economics degree you'd be just as in demand because you understand the labor market and how you and you understand how things work if you have a marketing background the employers would have loved to have you because they could see you immediately moving into either community capacity building or into employer engagement and as i mentioned earlier the work is not just in the community-based sector although that is the largest area of employment you can also look at post-secondary institutions both public and private there are private organizations out there and who knows you may go into private practice once you get some experience under your belt if you have a special niche that you think that you could fill so who do we look for in people who can complete the program and success in the field we look for people who are empathetic to others who care deeply about others but can who can also set boundaries we look for people who have a curiosity about others we need people who believe that people can make changes in their lives and that people can take control over their lives and because a lot of what we do is facilitate other people's process through transitions you have to believe that people can do it we never make decisions for other people we don't know them we'll never know them fully and we are not responsible for their lives but what we do is facilitate a process where they can make decisions for themselves i think an interesting work in terms of wanting to know what makes things successful for one person versus another is important and the notion of self-sufficiency that we counsel people to self-sufficiency in other words we work ourselves out of jobs because people need to be able to do it for themselves there will always be people who require extra help and will do that too but by and large we call it psycho educative counseling where we deal with the whole person and we teach a lot of what we do is teach and the bottom line is that everything you do has a ripple effect contributing to the emotional and financial well-being of our clients as i said earlier all kinds of experiences are helpful and if you've gone through your own struggles and finding your way and figuring out what's right for you then you will understand what that's like for other people if you've gone through unemployment you'll understand that rollercoaster of employment i would say it's an intense program because you're looking at yourself all the time you're going through the same things and self-exploration that you take clients through and there is a good amount of work in this program there are lots of deadlines and sometimes weeks where you have multiple deadlines so using your time management skills is important if you have work experience you'll be applying everything that you know about being a good worker to being a good adult student there will certainly be times outside of class where you will need to do reading and assignments the formula is usually one hour in and one hour out for some that may be that much but for others it may be more depending on your particular learning style in your first term we deliver courses on friday afternoons friday evenings and all day saturday you will also take some courses completely online in the second semester there will be two additional evening courses so you will notice that we're leaving four days out of the week where you could actually work and a lot of current students are working and going to school because our students are adults many have to support families and things like that so your decision on whether you can do it full-time and work part-time i think those are things that only you can answer but you need to think about time management you need to think about doing work outside of those few hours that you'll actually be in classes you need to be realistic as this is a post diploma graduate certificate with a solid amount of work that needs to be done so coming into this program you need to have completed a college diploma or a university degree when you apply to this program you will need to provide your transcript to show that you have achieved your diploma or bachelor's degree if your degree or diploma is from outside canada you will need to have it accredited by wes or icas and if you have previous work experience that's terrific i say that because you're counseling people about work and it's kind of hard to do that if you've never experienced it yourself so i hope you've at least worked part-time of course your work experience does not have to be from canada it can be from anywhere and if your experience is in an unrelated field you might be surprised to learn at the many unique ways some cdps have blended their prior education and experience no matter how different into the good work they do now besides the application basics and required documentation there are no further selection criteria for the program really it's up to you to self-select us and commit to the program at this point in time the key is you're thinking about is this the right program for you is this going to meet what you're hoping for in your life think about the work that you would be doing afterwards not just the program is this something that would excite you or would give you a sense of fulfillment or a sense of meaning because really that's what this work is all about it's all about helping people to find meaning through their work so if this sounds like you that's terrific and if it doesn't that's okay because it means you're one step closer to what you want for yourself you may be able to get credit for some of your coursework for education or experience you've earned elsewhere there are two ways to do that the first is if you're post-secondary is if in your post-secondary education you have courses that were very similar to ours you might be able to get credit transfer an example could be that you took courses in diversity or equity at the university level that reflected the same content that we're offering once you've applied to the program and been accepted you can upload your transcript and your course outline we would then look at it to see if it matches if it does you don't have to take that course you don't get a grade for it and it does not contribute to your grade point average it just shows as a course exemption the other way is if you're working in the field you may receive prior learning assessment and recognition which we call plar basically it's if you already know how to do something through your work experience or volunteer experience or perhaps have some other kind of training you have to demonstrate to the college that you have that knowledge and competency it varies course by course on what that looks like it's something you would be in touch with me about and i would guide you in terms of what you would need to submit in order to have that evaluated you do have to pay a fee for this evaluation and after that evaluation and if it's approved what happens is you will actually get a grade and it would contribute to your grade point average so as soon as you know you're accepted into this program if you have experience that's when you want to be in touch with me at that point we can start looking at where you might be able to receive prior learning assessment and recognition or perhaps credit transfer as well the first offers will go out to people once they're accepted by the college in february so you want to be one of those first people you'll want to get your application in before that once the registrar has all of your documentation they will look at who's applied and they'll be in touch after that point in february it's one by one until we're full we do usually have a waiting list so please do apply early we do have english language proficiency requirements for the program note that applicants with international transcripts must either provide english language proficiency test results or complete the gbc college english assessment to provide evidence of their english proficiency the screen you can see my email i'm not here full time but i do try to respond to emails fairly quickly or you can talk to other people in our main office of the school of social and community services or of course you can talk to people through the contact center here at the college if you want specific information it is probably best to email me and i say email rather than phone only because i'm here part-time and work remotely the own that's the way i can back it back to you from whether i am wherever i am much faster so thank you very much for watching this pre-recorded information session for the career development practitioner program at george brown college i look forward to hearing from you and hopefully seeing you in september of 2021
2021-03-25