Career Guidance in the Service of Integration in Norway

The devolution instigated in the United Kingdom in 1997 was a further stage in a long historical process. Nonetheless, prior to the 1990s, the basic structures of career guidance services were broadly similar across the UK. But the marketisation of careers services that took place under the Conservative government in the mid-1990s went further in England than elsewhere. This helped to pave the way for the markedly different directions followed post-devolution, with England seeking horizontal integration of services for young people and adults respectively, whereas Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have emphasised vertical integration of career guidance services on an all-age basis. Some sectors have been affected less by devolution than others. It is suggested that the model adopted in England has already weakened the structures for career guidance provision, and is currently at risk of weakening them still further. The relative size of England means that these weaknesses could have ripple effects on the other home countries too—in relation to professional training and professional status, for example. Existing collaborative mechanisms need to be strengthened, and a culture of mutual learning enhanced, if the potential benefits of diversification are to be fostered and its potential risks avoided.

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Skilled migration has been an important part of the socioeconomic development and progression of many industrialised Western countries. However, successful migration includes facilitating sociocultural and professional environments, policies, and practices in a way that utilizes the skills of migrants appropriately. Internationally educated physicians (IEPs) are an important part of the health and wellness care program of these countries. Nevertheless, because of regulations and limited available positions, many of these migrated physicians find they cannot enter into the healthcare workforce as practicing physicians. Utilizing their health-related knowledge and skills through nonphysician careers in health and wellness is a beneficial way to integrate these highly skilled professionals into a country’s socioeconomic flow. Despite the availability of alternative careers for IEPs, we identified that these paths are often not explored and facilitated, resulting in un/underemployment and wastage of these highly skilled human resources. A lack of willingness among IEPs, under/overestimation of their transferable skills by themselves and by potential employers, and a lack of strategic support and career guidance are prominent obstacles. A collaborative approach from multiple sectors, including academics, integration service providers, and policy makers, is needed to create awareness of these alternative opportunities and facilitation of the socioeconomic integration of IEPs.

This article considers approaches to create a converged learning environment for information support for students to make decision at the stage of choosing an educational direction and a specific organization of higher education for admission, and describes the general architecture of a converged environment and an integrated information system, as well as methods and technological approaches to integrate and organize an interaction in the proposed environment of various information systems, resources and services, including all-Russian, departmental services and specialized services for vocational guidance testing and testing in the Unified State Exam. The considered approaches make it possible in the proposed convergent environment to implement decision support procedures in the formation of related stages of the individual educational trajectory of an applicant, including : choice of a future profession, that is on demand; personal professional abilities and inclinations studied during professional testing; preparation for passing the Unified State Exam, preliminary trial testing and passing the exam; choosing the appropriate direction of training and the university for admission.The interrelation to solve problems at the above stages is ensured, in particular, through the use of data from the digital trail of the applicant and the integration of information and software services provided by several systems through unified interaction interfaces (API). And there is given brief information about the implementation of the elements of the integrated system as well.

The article presents social activation policy as exemplified by labour market services in Poland. Labour market services are an important element of activation policy as a delivery paradigm for social policy in Europe, being developed for over 25 years. The aim of the article is to offer a synthetic analysis of the achievements and challenges related to the development of labour market services in Poland against the backdrop that is the concept of active social policy. The author recommends reforms of labour market institutions, developing labour market services, increasing individualized social services, counseling and job placement, and integration of labour administration services with social assistance and the social economy. He also emphasizes the need to invest in professional career counseling and career orientation services and support for the development of dual vocational education. The article concludes with recommendations for science and decision makers.

The dropout is a reality in universities around the world. Its effects are felt both on a personal and social level. Revealing the causes that lead to the phenomenon and taking appropriate measures for its prevention must be priorities for universities. The paper aims to address the phenomenon of university dropout, a reality in the Bucharest University of Economic Studies to, emphasizing the most frequent causes of expelling: withdrawals, non-payment of tuition fees, non-accumulation of ECTS credits, non-signing of study contracts, accumulation of more than 3 failed exams after the first exam session. The analysis of the Career Counselling and Career Orientation Centre shows that the students come with an unrealistic image on the academic environment, and in fact what they need is support (tutoring and counselling services) for an easier integration. The research conducted is based on the premise that university dropout is a reality. Students who face difficulties to integrate themselves into the academic environment are the most exposed to the risk of dropout. This risk is dependent also on social and personal factors such as: the environment in which the student has grown up, the performance level achieved in high school, being member of a vulnerable group or not, low level of family income, lack of social competences, low level of interpersonal and emotional intelligence. The paper makes an analysis of the difficulties first year students considered they have to face and come with solutions to the university dropout phenomenon, both in terms of prevention and intervention.

Following guidelines in the mental health strategic plan of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), VA began in 2005 to fund a number of new positions for consumer-providers (CPs)--that is, individuals with personal experience of serious mental illness who provide support services to others with serious mental illness, typically as clinical team members. This study explored the challenges of CP implementation in its early stages within the VA. Four focus groups were conducted with a total of 59 VA CPs and 34 VA supervisors from across the United States. Group notes were coded by using a modified grounded theory approach to generate themes. Data from the groups suggest that hiring and employing CPs within VA has been feasible, beneficial, and acceptable to a majority of teammates. CPs reported experiencing some role confusion and resistance and fears among professional staff about how CPs would fit in. The authors make three recommendations on the basis of the focus group findings. First, CPs, traditional staff, and administrators need to be adequately prepared so that CPs can be effectively incorporated into clinical teams. Second, training for CPs varies widely, and efforts should be made to determine the best training package. Third, systems that are considering using CPs should establish a continuous quality improvement system to help evaluate CPs' performance and patient outcomes and to gather data to improve the knowledge base about CPs and their functions. CPs provide a wide range of recovery-oriented services and are valued by staff and consumers.