Closing session

1. Closingsession “Professional Care for Guidance Practitioners – Who Cares for Those Who Care” Bratislava 15 – 16th April 2010, Falkensteiner Hotel Bratislava

2. National Survey • Profesionalisation of Career Counselling - Professional Care for Guidance Practitioners • Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia • Report is not official country position – represents view of the authors

3. National Survey • Prepared by Euroguidance staff and/or experts • Education (counselling at schools and counselling facilities) • Public employment services

4. National Survey - structure • Initial training at work for beginning counsellors and supervision • Further training – update of knowledge and methods • Prevention: working environment – well-being • Intervention measures

5. Objectives • Comparation of the state of play • Generalization of the situation in Central Europe • Discussion and recommendations

6. Supervision • There is no obligatory supervision set by law Supervision as working standard: (PL PES; SL social affairs, SK social affairs) • PL PES: „ A substantive support is guaranteed by law only to those who are employed in labour offices as vocational counsellors – interns, as they perform their duties under the supervision of licensed vocational counsellor or a superior“ • PL PES: „counsellors employed at the labour offices are obliged to possess a professional licence“

7. Supervision Supervision as working standard: • PL PES: „ counsellors are obliged to cooperate with other experts employed at the poviat labour office at difficult cases “ • PL PES: „Polish training market offers training courses on supervision“ • SK Social affairs: „supervision is an obligatory part of training, i.e. during the first two years of work. In groups is carried out once a month “

8. Supervision Supervision as working standard: • SL Social affairs: „supervision in the social field is legislated, so it is very common to have supervision in Centres of Social work “ • SL Social affairs: „Social Chamber of Slovenia is responsible for planning, implementation and monitoring supervision of professional work in social security “ • SL Social affairs: Regulation on planning, monitoring and implementation of professional work in the field of social security (Official Journal of the Republic of Slovenia 113/04)

9. Supervision Supervision – testing, projects, plans: (CZ, HU, SK Edu, SL PES ans EDU, PL Edu) • PL EDU: „carried out under the programme “Safe and Friendly School” “ • PL EDU: „ plan is to include supervision in the system of teachers’ career progression“ • PL EDU: „ project of introducing certification for supervisors“ • PL EDU: „internt forum Doradca 2000“

10. Supervision Supervision – testing, projects, plans: (CZ, HU, SK Edu, SL PES ans EDU, PL Edu) • CZ: „ There is the Czech Institute for Supervision “ • CZ: intervision as a support of counselling is part of a project called “What is also going on at school” - European Social Fund • HU: „ Social Renewal Operational Program in Hungary provides supervision for the 50 LLG counsellors during the program period“

11. Supervision Supervision – testing, projects, plans: (CZ, HU, SK Edu, SL PES and EDU, PL Edu) • SL EDU: „The Faculty of Education is teaching the “educational and developmental” model of supervision“ • SL EDU: „ A supervisor should have a degree in supervision“ • Standard proposed in guidelines is that the school counsellor in schools must participate in these activities minimum 2 hours per month • SL PES: „ establishment of the Education Centre“, „ supervision will probably be introduced again, since there is a special need among counsellors “

12. Intervision Preference of the intervision: (DE, AT-Edu, SK-Edu) • Intervision is method supported by all countries either as parallel method to supervision or as main measure for training at the workplace • DE PES: „ decree - (Runderlass 66/200) both supervision and coaching - was cancelled in 2008“ • DE PES: „ counsellors are supported via the tool “practice-oriented counselling” which is part of the staff development“

13. Supervision / Intervision Conclusions • Supervision is recognised and valuable measure but is time consuming and quite expensive • Regarding the challenging work of counsellors and client’s expectations supervision should be at least in a minimal amount included in working standards • Intervision is more effective and appropriate for LLL at the workplace. It could be successfully supported by e-tools.

14. Further training* Training aimed on keeping the quality of guidance services and professional level counsellors could be organised as: • Obligatory for employers and/or counsellors • Optional offer / motivation measures • Not regulated at all * Here we are focusing on specialized training of guidance practitioners and not on general training of employees

15. Further training* * Here we are focusing on specialized training of guidance practitioners and not on general training of employees

16. Further training Examples: • AT-Edu: „ Further training and update of knowledge is organised by a working group on regional level and has to be taken at least once a year“ • AT-Edu: „ Responsibilities of the School Psychology Service is support of teachers as well as co-operation in the planning of their further training on regional level“ • PL PES: „ introduction of licences“ „ to activate and motivate to develop their competences and qualifications“ • PL PES: Universities offers postgraduate studies free of charge for counsellors • PL PES: „ Training courses are prepared on the basis of needs assessments carried out among counsellors employed at labour offices“

17. Further training Examples: • PL-Edu: „Training leaves benefit; Master degree studies“ • PL-Edu: „ possibility to obtain subsequent levels of career progression“ after training • SK-Edu: „ In education sector Act No. 317/2009 on pedagogical staff and specialists“; By law specialists and pedagogical staff have the right for 5 working days to participate in continual education courses and programmes. • SK-School: „ there exists the offer of specialised study for educational counsellors – beginners lasting for 200 hours“

18. Further training Examples: • SK-School: „ there exists the offer of specialised study for educational counsellors – beginners lasting for 200 hours“ • SL-Edu: „in-service teacher trainings that are published yearly in the Catalogue of Continuous Expert Training “ • CZ-Edu: e-learning training programme for educational and career counsellors called eKariéra

19. Further training Conclusions • Further training of counsellors is mostly not specific and supported equally to other employees • Professionalization of guidance requires systematic monitoring of training needs and preparation of targeted training offer • Demand for quality vocational training from public sector is necessary for generation of offer on the training market • Innovation of knowledge and methods is ethical obligation of counsellor and should be part of working standard

20. Well-being It is more than obvious that attention paid to this area is smaller than elaboration of professional requirements imposed on guidance personnel Working conditions are usually the same as for other workers in the sector. • Examples: • DE-PES: „The Federal Employment Agency has installed an internal health management for all co-workers “

21. Well-being • Examples: • PL-Edu: „ Activities carried out under the project “Safe and Friendly School”... to achieve balance between their personal and professional lives“ • SK-Edu, PL-Edu: „ The Act also assigns specialists and pedagogical staff the status of a protected person in order to provide them with higher security status, mainly by the means of high degree of penalty in case of the attack by potential offenders“

22. Intervention resources Are mostly organised as ad hoc seminars like „burn out prevention“. Other examples: • CZ-Edu: „ The Institute of Educational and Psychological Counselling operates an anonymous counselling Helpline serving particularly the educational staff “ • HU: „ portal for the career guidance professionals“ – social networking

23. Intervetion resources Otherexamples: • PL-Edu: „ informal, self-development groups as well as psychological support groups which allow the counsellors to counteract professional burnout and contribute to their professional development operate in some psychological and pedagogical centres employing vocational counsellors“ • SK-Edu: „ the headmaster provides for pedagogical staff and specialists preventive psychological counselling at least once a year and allows them to take part in trainings focused on aggressiveness prevention, self-knowledge and conflict solving“

24. Well-being and Intervetion Conclusions • Working environment influences client’s trust in professionalism of offered services; It is recommended to revise current facilities according to expectation of clients. • In the first place target the focus on prevention measures • Employer and social partners should promote existing prevention and intervention measures among counsellors

25. Thank you for your attention “Professional Care for Guidance Practitioners – Who Cares for Those Who Care” Take care of yourselves. EUROGUIDANCE TEAM