Parent Engagement in Careers Education
Careers Education - Why is successful engagement with carers important?
The Career Industry Council of Australia has released an information sheet encouraging schools to ensure they engage parents, guardians and carers in career education planning with their children. Here is an extract from the information sheet:
Parents, guardians and carers still remain the number one influencer of a young persons’ career decision making.
In developing a quality school career education plan, parental engagement in the elements of career advice and information and awareness of various pathways is essential. So how do schools engage successfully with them to make sure they feel empowered in having a positive and informed influence in their child’s career decision making? Unfortunately, there is no one size fits all approach in answering this question, and engagement strategies for each school will be and should be unique, based on the individual school population.
How do parents like to engage?
It is vital to understand your parent population and get to know how they like to engage. They may prefer:
• face to face meeting
• receiving and reading information online either via direct email or visiting the school website
• reading a blog
• attending a webinar
• regular articles in newsletters and websites
• using social media i.e. Twitter, Facebook etc.
• offering their services as a guest speaker/employer
• attending career exhibitions / expos
• attending before or after work information/networking sessions
• having an information pack mailed home.
The CSPV website provides resources that can be shared with parents but it is vital that parents, teachers and students work together as a team of three to discuss and plan pathways for careers, well before they reach year 12.
We are witnessing many students either being indecisive about what they want to do, choosing subjects that don't interest them or being unsure of the pathways they want to take or what is available. Often parents are at a loss and don't know how to support them in understanding pathways, often relying on the school with little or no knowledge of what their child is being advised at the school. Working together with parents is much more effective in providing support for each student to ensure they are informed about their choices and are able to make decisions confidently with prior knowledge.
Occasionally some parents may have high or unrealistic expectations of career pathways for their children without listening to what their interests or passions are.
If schools are to engage parents in conversations and planning for careers, each person needs to feel safe to listen, engage in conversation and, in some cases, compromise depending on the student and their interests for their future.
The Victorian Department of Education and Training have developed useful materials for schools to encourage engagement of families in careers education:
Engaging Parents in Careers Conversations Resources
EPICC PowerPoint Presentations
- EPiCC Master PowerPoint (pptx - 4.61mb) - This comprehensive PowerPoint has been designed as the foundation, underpinning a variety of ways to use the Framework. The components (activities, information, links etc.) can be incorporated into the following:
- Two hour sample EPiCC workshop (pptx - 3.22mb) - A workshop that is ready to be used, i.e. “off the shelf” to help facilitators get started.
- Customised EPiCC PowerPoints:
- English as an Additional Language (pptx - 4.99mb)
EPICC Additional Resources
- Workshop planning template (docx - 35.44kb) - A template to help facilitator’s construct a workshop using the resources available. For a completed sample, please see:EPiCC Sample 2 hour workshop planning template (docx - 39 (docx - 39.21kb)
- Video links (docx - 34.83kb) - A comprehensive list of relevant videos to use or share.
- Glossary (doc - 125kb) - Terms and acronyms used throughout the PowerPoint presentations and notes and a handy reference for parents and staff who are unfamiliar with senior secondary, training and higher education.
- Webpage links (docx - 32.14kb) - A reference list for parents where they can source additional information.
The use of these PowerPoints and other resources is only limited by imagination. Schools and organisations can decide how best to use the resources and are encouraged to come up with other creative ways in which to use EPiCC.