30NCGE NEWS Winter 2011Non-FormalCareer Management Skills and the Youthreach ModelIf you access the Youthreach website and look at the ethos for this initiative, you will discover a focus on the holistic development of the individual. There is an emphasis on a safe, structured and challenging environment. Programmes focus on independence and integration. Programmes offer a cross-disciplinary curricular objective including communication skills development and health and safety awareness. There is a general emphasis on achievement rather than failure. Appropriate assessment and certification are included. There is an in-built flexibility and the programme duration is based on need rather than time. The programme is intended to facilitate young people in returning to learning and preparing for employment and adult life. Youthreach objectives include personal and social development and increased self-esteem. Promotion of independence, personal autonomy, active citizenship and a pattern of lifelong learning are key concepts. There is a focus on integration into further education and training opportunities and the labour market. Social inclusion is a primary objective. Youthreach offers a flexible programme of integrated general education, vocational training and work experience. Learners set personal and educational goals with a view to increasing self-esteem, skill and knowledge base and employability. Essential course elements include Personal and Social Development, Vocational Skills and Communications Skills. Within the National Framework of Qualifications, students undertake FETAC awards in a range of disciplines including: communications, maths and computer skills. This allows students to progress through the education system, thus allowing the development of career opportunities. The Youthreach process involves personal development and exploration; identification of needs, interests and capacities; setting learning goals; sampling general vocational skills; development of specific aptitudes; work experience and literacy and numeracy development. In many ways, what Youthreach attempts to attain mirrors many of the concepts within Career Management Skills (CMS) as outlined in the report on the work European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network (ELGPN) 2008-2010 http://ktl.jyu.fi/ktl/english/publications/elgpn-reportThe definition of Career Management Skills within the ELGPN Report is as follows:-Career management skills refer to a whole range of competences which provide structured ways for individuals and groups to gather, analyse, synthesise and organise self, educational and occupational information, as well as the skills to make and implement decisions and transitions.Career management skills should start from a strengths/abilities view of the individual (not a deficit view) according to the Report which mirrors Youthreach's emphasis on achievement rather than failure. The ELGPN's understanding of

31career management skills puts a focus on career management skills curricula, which connects with learners' frameworks of relevance. Curricula should recognise, acknowledge and build on learners' life experience, which is considered a source of strength on which other knowledge, skills and understandings can be developed. Career management skills curricula should be co-constructed with learners, proposed, negotiated and with respect to the learner. Again, the Youthreach ethos of the learner setting personal and educational goals mirrors the ELGPN's message of co-constructing with the learner. Career Management Skills within an ELGPN context places great store on the recognition of our prior learning. According to the ELGPN Report, Assessment of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) is a process which enables people of all ages and backgrounds to receive recognition and formal credit for learning acquired in the past through formal study and through work and other life experiences. Validation of informal and non-formal learning helps to improve access and mobility of individuals, both into and within education and employment. The process represents an opportunity for individuals to achieve recognition for their skills and competences, thus supporting the promotion of equality. Access to adequate guidance and support is considered necessary to help citizens, especially those with low skills and no employment, to make use of APEL and thereby to value prior learning. The Youthreach model aims to be holistic thus embracing the life experience of formal, non-formal and informal learning. We all have life experiences, skills and competencies which we have developed in a myriad of ways. Getting in touch with those skills and competencies, placing value on them as elements for future transition and progression may be the first steps in the raising of consciousness of who we are and what we have to offer to our community.Guidance has a role to play in the development of our career management skills. One of the ways in which guidance is making a contribution in County Wicklow VEC is through the Adult Educational Guidance Service playing a key role in the development of a Mentorship Programme in collaboration with Youthreach, which is currently being piloted with staff in Co Wicklow VEC Youthreach. Mentoring is perceived as a sustained relationship between a young person and an adult. A mentor may have many roles including: role model; motivator; coach; tutor and advisor. Personal development mentoring may support the learner during times of personal or social stress. Educational mentoring may help the learner improve their overall academic achievement. Career mentoring may assist the learner develop the necessary skills to enter or continue on a career path.Mentorship may prove to be a key tool in assisting young people to get in touch with, develop and enhance, those key career management skills, which require a lifelong approach.Non-FormalCareer Management Skills and the Youthreach Model continuedNCGE NEWS Winter 2011Additional InformationNCGE would like to thank the staff in Co. Wicklow VEC, Catherine Greene, AEGS Co-ordinator and Sharon Hughes, Arklow Youthreach Co-ordinator for sharing their experience of the pilot mentoring programme. Related WebsitesYouthreach - www.youthreach.ieCo. Wicklow Adult Guidance Service - www.wags.ieEuropean Lifelong Guidance Policy Network, ELGPN - http://ktl.jyu.fi/ktl/elgpnCLICK toLINK