PLANNING CANVAS OF CAREER GUIDANCE PROGRAM Initially, when planning the development of this publication, the main aim was to gather from a variety of career guidance experts the most effective methods and syllabi of the sessions that they were ready to share. In the course of the project, it became clear that it is important for youth workers to understand and explore in more detail how career guidance activities are developed and how to plan them structurally. In other words, it was more important for career guidance professionals and youth workers to be empowered to express themselves creatively in creating their own unique program than to receive a methodological publication with all set answers. When communicating with colleagues, we have noticed that many of them confront in one way or another with the organization of educational activities, but at the same time they are looking for new inspiration, ideas, opportunities and experiences, on the basis of which they could improve their ongoing programs. This led us to reconsider the content and format of the methodology. The main message has changed – the set of prepared methods has been transformed into a workbook, which invites professionals to get inspiration from good practices and to shape their own set of unique activities for young people. The glued binding of the publication has been changed to a spiral one in order to make this publication as mobile and convenient as possible for everyday use – to fold, to conveniently open the required page, noting the relevant thoughts in it. We aimed to give youth workers the opportunity to use this workbook as conveniently as the authors themselves used their syllabi during the sessions – by bending their notebooks, holding them in their hands during the sessions and synchronizing parts of the session’s program. Responding to the need to receive assistance in shaping career guidance activities, we created a Planning Canvas of Career Guidance Program, which consists of twelve points, that include the analysis of available educational experience, target group and consistent planning of specific actions. This planning canvas can be used to plan both short-term, one- or multi-session projects, as well as long-term, ongoing programs. Below is a more detailed description of each of the twelve points.
been irrelevant and useless.
1. THE TARGET GROUP
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In this section, youth workers and career professionals are invited to describe in more detail the target group of young people they work with or intend to work with, defining in general terms the social characteristics and the circumstances in which their target group is located. We encourage you to better reflect on the lifestyle context of future program participants, the issues and difficulties these young people are facing, and to discover unique characteristics that are specific to this group. Perhaps your target group is young people from national minorities? Perhaps your target group is young people living in a violent environment? Or, perhaps, quite the opposite, the future participants in your program are qualified young people with considerable work experience and a good income who are looking for innovation and meaning? Questions to be answered: • • •
What are the characteristics of your target group? What are the biggest challenges your customers face? How is your target group different from others?
2. EXPERIENCE AND/OR INSIGHTS Specialists are invited to recall and outline all their previous experience, methods applied, remembering which of them have served the purpose and which have
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Questions to be answered:
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What experience do you already have in this area? What are your insights and remarks from observing the experiences of other professionals in the field of career guidance or after receiving feedback from clients? What methods did you apply? Which methods served the purpose and which didn’t?
3. NEEDS OF THE TARGET GROUP After reviewing the first two points, we move on to the third one, where professionals are invited to name the needs of their target group to be addressed. In order to complete this section as accurately as possible, it is recommended to implement a survey, during which participants will be able to express their needs directly. Questions to be answered: • •
What skills does your target group need to strengthen? What forms of assistance and actions are relevant?
4. METHODS, WHICH ARE WORTH APPLYING In this section, we re-review all the sections we have completed before and we reflect on which methods have already proved their worth and we should continue using them, and which methods and forms of work should we abandon and try something new instead. So, what methods and forms of activities will you
