How do you know what your service users want?

24-April-2006

The Guidance Council are seeking case studies to show how planners and providers consult with users and potential users of guidance services, and how this information is used to inform service development. The case studies will provide examples of good practice to inform and illustrate their current research into how user views can be better represented in the guidance sector. Can you help?

Dr Helen Plant, project co-ordinator Guidance Council/ NIACE is seeking examples of approaches/mechanisms that have been used to consult with service users.  The attached paper 'Developing National Forums for Guidance in Six Member States – Malta, Estonia, Denmark, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and Ireland.' is taken from the report of a transnational conference held in Bled, Slovenia on 9 December 2005, as a part of the work of the National Guidance Policy Forums Project.  It is designed to help people think about effective approaches to consultation.

As Helen states in her introduction to the paper:

The importance of involving service users in the development of public policy is increasingly recognised.  Within the education sector, for example, there is considerable rhetoric around the need to respond to the ‘voice of the user’, and to put learners/users/clients ‘at the heart’ of policy and service development.  Yet it is true to say that this vision is currently more honoured in the breach than in the observance, and sits uneasily alongside a planning and funding structure that is essentially ‘top down’, created with little, if any, attempt to capture and reflect the views of learners.  The concern of the National Guidance Policy Forum project to explore how guidance service users could be involved in policy development and strategic decision-making is to be warmly welcomed.  However, it has to be acknowledged that there Is currently very little concrete experience on which we can draw from within the guidance sector to inform our understanding of how this work might most usefully be taken forward.

You can read the whole article from here, but more importantly you can contribute to the discussion.  The Guidance Council are seeking case studies to show how planners and providers consult with users and potential users of guidance services, and how this information is used to inform service development.  The case studies will provide examples of good practice to inform and illustrate their current research into how user views can be better represented in the guidance sector.

Send your case study in whatever format is easiest to you directly to Dr Helen Plant via the email given at the end of the report, and/or post a response to this discussion thread to share your thoughts.


Lucy Marris; 24-April-2006 18:11:20 forum (1)

1 comments.

Latest comment:
15-May-2006 18:07:32 by lmhearne; Case studies of guidance service users

Moving On Up - Ethnic Minority Women and work

27-April-2006

The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) is in the midst of a major investigation into the participation of ethnic minority women in the labour market and their experience with pay, and progression to higher salary levels.

Ethnic minority women are being asked to take part in an online survey, and information is also being gathered from unions, voluntary organisations, professional networks, businesses, and public bodies. Details of the Moving on up? project are available on the EOC web site at Ethnic Minority Women and Work - the site is asking for individuals and employers to get in touch with their own stories, but you can also access some great (if depressing) quotes from ethnic minority women talking about their experiences of trying to access the labour market.  Can guidance make any difference in the face of all this?

A selection of real life quotes from women who have contacted the EOC about their own experiences at work.
 
"I am only 26 but have many things going against me: female, married, Asian, traditional child-bearing age"
Pakistani Muslim woman, IT sector
 
"I find that as I have an English name and speak very well, I am assumed to be English white but when I attend the interview, their faces, expressions and handshakes says it all. This kind of attitude has deterred me from entering the legal field and has kept me from my chosen profession"
Black Caribbean woman, secretarial – legal
 
"Both Westminster and the private sector are still made up of an 'old boys network' where initial assumptions about any woman, especially those from an ethnic minority background, are that they are the PA/admin assistant"
Pakistani woman, charity sector
 
"One of very few ethnic minority women at my grade. Experience barriers and resistance. Blocked from opportunities for progression".
Black African woman, public sector
 
"I was unable to find paid work for a period of two years. This was despite my obvious experience, knowledge and applications for jobs within my skills or for which I was over-qualified. It was only when I changed my first name to a more familiar form that I began to be called for interviews"
Pakistani and English woman, public sector

Lucy Marris; 27-April-2006 16:38:12 forum (0)

Are Careers Advisers to blame for gender stereotypical career choices in young people?

27-April-2006

At the 2005 ICG Annual conference in Bristol, Sir Digby Jones (CBI Director-General) seemed to imply that careers advisers don't challenge gender stereotyping enough - was this fair comment?

Speaking at the Institute of Career Guidance Annual Conference in Bristol (2005), CBI Director-General Sir Digby Jones said:

'Ninety-seven per cent of those taking apprenticeships in childcare are women, but only one per cent of construction apprentices are female. Business and young people need careers advisers to help challenge rather than reinforce these kind of gender stereotypes. We just can't afford a careers advice system that is stuck in a 1970s timewarp'

It seems to me unlikely that Careers Advisers alone are responsible for gender segregation in the world of work. If we were sufficiently influential to bring about social change and greater equality simply through conducting guidance interviews that would be great!  However, recently it seems that Careers Advisers are being blamed for societal problems and inequalities that are way beyond our control.  Perhaps it is a good thing if careers work is seen as being that significant, but on the other hand, how can we defend our services under attack, and more importantly, what are we doing to help overcome, in this instance, gender inequalities?

If you have some examples of good practice and initiatives that you are involved in then why not share them here?


Lucy Marris; 27-April-2006 17:06:14 forum (1)

1 comments.

Latest comment:
Gender Equality through Careers Guidance; 11-July-2006 16:14:45 by Lucy Marris

1 trackbacks.

Latest trackback link:
[Guidance], Are Careers Advisers to Blame for Stifling Aspirations?, 12-August-2006 09:21:32