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ICG Memorandum Of Understanding

Friday 13 October 2006 00:00 BST
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As part of the Institute's efforts to encourage greater collaboration within the career guidance sector, the ICG has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Careers England.

Careers England is a trade association for employer organisations in career education and guidance in England. It is the only association of specialist career guidance employers in the country and its members include the largest employers of career guidance practitioners.

The Memorandum of Understanding commits both organisations to sharing information and establishing practical collaborative activities of benefit to the members of Careers England and ICG.

Rachel Mulvey, ICG President (below, with Careers England's Neil Williams), said: "This is an important step forward for the Institute and sets a marker for the future of the sector which will rely on collaboration and partnership".

Discussions continue with employer partners in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland about establishing similar arrangements.

CELEBRATING PAST GLORY

The ICG Board and Council have agreed on a new project that will document a historic look at over a century of career guidance. The project, entitled "All our Yesterdays", is to be led by worthy veterans: David Laytham (above) and David Peck, the author of Careers Services - History, Policy and Practice in the United Kingdom. Speaking to CGT, the pair said: "Our mission is to pay tribute to people who have shaped career guidance over the last 100 years and to the professional bodies which have supported their work."

They aim to collate written, aural and audio-visual archive material about career guidance practitioners and their clients; to focus on materials, which highlight their professional bodies and to use the material to produce publications, reference and display material. Some of the projects that they have initially agreed to undertake are auditing written archive material, digitally enhancing and storing archive photographs held at ICG headquarters, transferring archive films onto DVD - including treasures like When They Leave School and Mr Marsh Comes To School - recording aural interviews with veteran career guidance practitioners, producing an Institute "Roll of Honour", with enhanced pictures of former presidents and other office holders, publishing articles about different eras of careers guidance, and building on work by Geoffrey Greenwell and Laytham to produce a new history of our professional body.

Members are invited to make further suggestions and send any archive material they have to the Institute office.

TEENAGERS JUMP FOR CAREERS IN FOOD

A pioneering scheme for 14- to 16-year-olds to complete an apprenticeship in food and drink manufacturing while still at school has proved so popular that all available places have been snapped up in just a few weeks.

Government funding for the placements was secured in spring and the first 65 pupils started the course at three trial centres in England in September. The two-year Young Apprenticeship programme has been developed by Improve, the food and drink sector skills council, and will give students the opportunity to combine core academic subjects, such as English and maths, with vocational study at college and up to 50 days of work experience with a local employer. It will result in the equivalent of four good GCSEs and provides an excellent stepping stone for future careers in the food and drink sector.

At the three trial centres - Nantwich in Cheshire, Bassetlaw in Nottinghamshire, and Ipswich in Suffolk - further education colleges, employers and schools have formed partnerships to run the programme.

"After the go-ahead for the courses was given earlier this year, Improve worked with each partnership to help inform school children and their parents about the programme, and to recruit the first young apprentices," explained Terry Fennell, learning frameworks manager at Improve. "As this is the first time the course has been available, we weren't sure how easy it would be to fill the places, but we have been delighted at how popular it has been. Our aim now is to obtain further funding to expand the programme, giving more pupils around the country the opportunity to begin a Young Apprenticeship in food and drink in September 2007."

For further information on the young apprenticeship programme, contact Terry Fennell at Improve on 0845 644 0448 or e-mail terry.fennell@improveltd.co.uk

BUILDING YOUR CAREER

A new careers map for building services engineering is now available from SummitSkills. Produced to help encourage new entrants to the sector, the map summarises progression routes and demonstrates the many career options available, from apprenticeship level through to chartered engineer.

The map tracks typical routes through a building services engineering career, from entry, through structured training and workplace experience to professional qualifications and career functions. It also summarises core craft, technical and engineering job descriptions to provide a flavour of what the work would entail and assists learners in selecting the right path to reflect their individual interests.

"There are many routes within each industry across the whole sector," explains Keith Marshall, the chief executive of SummitSkills. "This map is an overarching indication of the many varied career options and the ways to achieve them. Progression routes are well detailed to demonstrate to a young person, existing employee or parent that the sector provides opportunities for all interests and ambitions."

SummitSkills will be sending the map to schools and careers offices across the UK. An interactive web version of the map will be available in autumn to allow users to access this careers information online.

ESTYN GIVE CAREERS WALES THUMBS UP

Careers Wales Online has been highly commended in an inspection by Estyn, the body responsible for the inspection of education and training in Wales.

The service provides interactive careers information and advice for all ages, at all stages in their learning and working lives. With sections for employers, professionals, adults, and clients up to the age of 19, the website offers an invaluable service. Adult users can access information on returning to learning, changing career direction, facing redundancy and advice on volunteering. Under-16 users can take advantage of information on their choices about education and work as well as advice on work experience, and starting their own business, whilst the post-16 section of the site offers advice on everything from higher education to the benefits of a part-time job.

"We were extremely pleased to receive such a positive inspection report from Estyn," said Paul Messer, Careers Wales online manager. "The report highlighted the innovative nature of many of the features that the site offers [and] we are certainly looking forward to expanding and further developing the service to our users' needs in the future."

Some of these future developments include an e-Guidance service to compliment the work carried out by Careers Wales, delivering the site content for users with special educational needs, focusing on equal opportunities, offering advice to clients who are not in education, employment or training and working closely with employers to offer them a unique online service.

As well as these developments, Career Wales has been working in collaboration with the 14-19 networks through Wales to develop web-based menu options for pupils, assisting them in their Year 9 and Year 11 option choices.

NEW HEAD OF SERVICE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND

Careers Service Northern Ireland have announced Judith Shaw (pictured) as the new Head of service, taking over from John McKeown. She recently led the business change side of the merger of the NI colleges of Further Education. Shaw said: "I'm delighted to have taken on the role at such an exciting time. Following a major re-structuring of the careers service we are now working on the creation of a joint strategy with the Department of Education, which aims to help people plan their careers better. I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead."

ICG RESEARCH PRACTITIONERS FORUM

In July, the Institute's research committee confirmed plans to establish a new research practitioners' forum. This is designed to complement the committee's work and help understanding of the potential for applied research to be used as a tool in supporting careers work.

This new development will be led, in the first instance, by Deirdre Hughes and Pete Robertson, co-chairs of the research committee. Plans are underway to create opportunities for ICG members to network with those who have a shared interest in research. The research practitioners' forum, at www.guidance-research.org, will provide opportunities to meet up on a virtual basis, harnessing the National Guidance Research Forum (NGRF) website's discussion facilities.

In addition, face-to face activities are planned, linked to regional events and the Institute's annual conference in Glasgow. Over the next 12 months, it is envisaged that joint events with other professional association's research groups will emerge to help support the cross-fertilisation of shared knowledge between practitioners, researchers, managers, trainers and policy-makers.

For further information contact Deirdre Hughes, on dmhughes@derby.ac.uk or Pete Robertson on p.robertson@napier.ac.uk. If you would like to join the ICG research practitioners' forum contact Elizabeth Davies at the University of Derby (01332 591267; e.davies@derby.ac.uk).

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