VALA/2024

Abstract

Career counselling and guidance practices have been emphazised in the region. The education of career counsellors has developed in diverse ways within the Nordic and Baltic universities. The programs are historically grounded in the career counselling and education of children and youth. With increased emphasis on life-long learning and labour interventions the need for adult guidance has increased. Almost all the higher education programs that educate career counsellors in the Nordic and Baltic area have joined hands and established a network to be able to better prepare career counsellor and guidance workers for the diverse clients they need to work with. Two developmental projects have been completed. First, partners have compared programs and created curricular profiles based on the NICE common European framework. This work has resulted in the refinement of individual programs and exchange of practices and students. Second, a project to improve practical training, relations with the labour market and creation of learning communities was started. This is a complex ongoing task improving cooperation with working life. Intensive course about the use of ICT in career guidance was implemented four times. Another intensive course focusing on social justice in guidance has been designed and implemented three years on-line during the Covid-19 pandemic, and once on site. These courses are intended to strengthen the career guidance counsellors in meeting the needs of those that have difficulty in accessing guidance and are most vulnerable in the labour market and society. A course on career guidance and migration has been designed and put on the agenda to better meet career support needs of refugees and displaced persons, an issue that is high on government agendas in the Nordic countries. Teachers and students have also done exchanges through mobility funds through the years except during the pandemic.