The Blueprint For Careers - Evidence of Impact

Career learning for the 21st century:
The Blueprint for Careers - evidence of impact
Career learning for the 21st century: The Blueprint for Careers - evidence of impact
Acknowledgements
This publication arises from a study on Career Learning, Information, Advice and Guidance (CLIAG) undertaken by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service in 2010/2011. The project team would like to thank the following for their help and support in the work. Lincolnshire County Council school improvement service (CfBT) Somerset Skills & Learning, Somerset County Council Franklin College, Grimsby Esher College Sandwell College Nottinghamshire Training Network (NTN-Training) Stockton Riverside College University of the West of England (UWE) University of Bedfordshire (UoB) Wolverhampton College Chesterfield College unionlearn Suffolk TAP St Joan of Arc School John Warner School Bicton College North Hertfordshire College South Essex College Richard Huish College We would also like to thank all those who attended the workshops and shared their ideas, approaches and enthusiasm for the Blueprint approach.
Download
This guide is available to download in PDF format from the LSIS website and from the Excellence Gateway. LSIS: www.lsis.org.uk Publication reference: LSIS231
Foreword
From 2008 to 2010, LSIS undertook a number of projects for the DCSF and BIS, looking at Career Learning, Information, Advice and Guidance (CLIAG) for young people and adults in the learning and skills sector.
This work involved discussions with a wide range of people from across a range of sectors. The results have been used to produce a series of reports for the sector and others with an interest in the topic. It became clear that CLIAG is a leadership issue and that leaders in the sector need to address how their organisation can deliver this support effectively to gain maximum benefits for young people and their organisation. This publication examines a competence approach to career learning developed in America, Canada and Australia and now being considered in Scotland, called the Careers Blueprint. The focus of work in 2010/11 has been the larger scale trialling of the Blueprint approach with learners from a range of age groups and settings with the clear aim of eliciting what should be considered in the development of a new Blueprint approach that would work in the English context and wider. The Blueprint for Careers for England will be available in the autumn of 2011 for piloting and review. Some of the materials and resources used in this trial will be made available on the Blueprint for Careers section on the Excellence Gateway. We hope that you will be interested to read about the impact the Blueprint has had in this current trial and in such a wide range of settings. We very much hope that you consider whether the framework would be an effective approach for you in helping young people develop the competences they need to enable them to effectively plan, manage and develop their careers throughout their lives. Ann Ruthven (Head of Learning and Learner Support)
Excellence Gateway: Other publications in the Career learning for the 21st century series available on the Excellence Gateway
Published in 2009: Career learning for the 21st century: a leadership issue for the FE sector. Summary report Career learning for the 21st century: sources of evidence Career learning for the 21st century: a toolkit to support co-ordination of careers learning for young people in further education Career learning for the 21st century: Effective practice in the FE sector Career learning for the 21st century: The Career Blueprint a competence approach Published in 2010: Career learning for the 21st century: Embedding CLIAG: a guide for leaders Career learning for the 21st century: Careers Blueprint: a competence approach supporting an all age guidance strategy Career learning for the 21st century: CPD series: Introduction to CLIAG Career learning for the 21st century: CPD series: Introduction to interviewing Career learning for the 21st century: CPD series: Introduction to values and ethics Career learning for the 21st century: CPD series: Introduction to group working 1 and 2 Career learning for the 21st century: CPD series: Introduction to evaluating and measuring impact Career learning for the 21st century: CPD series: Introduction to raising aspirations & progression Career learning for the 21st century: Quality awards for career learning information, advice and guidance. Published in 2011: Career learning for the 21st century: CPD series: Employability Career learning for the 21st century: CPD series: CLIAG for those with additional support needs.
A modular online resource called Career Learning for All is also available free of charge on the LSIS VLE www.leadershiplearning.org.uk
Publisher
Published by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS). LSIS August 2011
Contents
Introduction Careers Blueprint: An overview The Blueprint trial process The trial case studies Evidence of impact Emerging themes Conclusions Practical lessons for the sector & recommendations Further reading 6 8 12 14 16 53 60 62
Introduction
In 2009, whilst researching and identifying examples of effective practice in the delivery of career learning, information advice and guidance (CLIAG), LSIS identified the Careers Blueprint as worthy of further investigation. This competence approach to career learning developed in, Canada, Australia and now being considered in Scotland had been on the horizon for a while and many professionals in CLIAG had taken an interest in the approach. As part of exploration process LSIS produced a guide to the Careers Blueprint. Career learning for the 21st century: the career Blueprint a competence approach. The aim of this guide was to inform practitioners in the sector about the Blueprint framework of career development competencies, which can be used by learners of all ages to help them understand themselves, explore opportunities and manage their careers. The Careers Blueprint originated in America and Canada over 20 years ago and is kept up to date through initiatives and international partnerships involving agencies in the USA, Canada and Australia. In 2009/10 LSIS undertook a small initial trial of the Blueprint funded by BIS and DCSF. In line with the recommendations from the first trial, LSIS in their commitment to career education in the sector and supporting the guidance professional community undertook to do the following: 1. commission and carry out longer-term trials and research to investigate how the Blueprint can be used most effectively to strengthen individuals career development; 2. consider how to develop more support for learning providers to introduce the Blueprint into their provision, including developing CPD materials which are technology driven and accessible; and 3. explore the potential for the further development of the Blueprint in the UK and its use across all age groups with relevant government departments. This publication reports on the first recommendation, which is, the implementation of a larger trial undertaken to extend understanding of how the Careers Blueprint might work in the English context. Building on the trial of the Blueprint approach undertaken in 2009/2010, the report documents the results of 19 discrete trials held in a number of different settings including colleges, schools, work based and adult learning. There were two main objectives in undertaking the work: finding and reporting evidence of impact of the Blueprint on learners, staff and organisations including any practical lessons for the sector; and collating information and guidance on what the Blueprint should look like to work in the English context.
Part A is the summary of the main aims and themes emerging from the trials, including the implications for the future development of the framework. Part B incorporates the full reports from each of the trial sites and is also available to download free on the Excellence Gateway. Careers work is no longer just about finding a quick-fix solution to learners needs at different career decision points. It is about equipping them for lifelong career well-being and happiness. Learners of all ages need to continue developing the career understanding and skills that will help them to succeed in learning and work throughout their lives and it was against this background that the Careers Blueprint was reviewed. Since the trials were conducted there have been changes in the provision of career learning and it is likely that it will no longer be compulsory in schools. It can be surmised that this situation is unlikely to have a positive impact on young people and their ability to plan accurately and fittingly for the future. The implementation of the Blueprint approach may well be quite timely for those individuals who have the wherewithal to take on a more self-directed approach which the Blueprint affords and it also provides a framework for all organisations to look towards when planning their career learning services.
Who is this report for?

This report is written for leaders and staff in all learning organisations, including employers, who are interested in exploring the implementation of a career competence approach to help learners to manage their own careers. The trials in this report focus specifically on the Blueprint approach but the findings may well be of use when considering other competence-based approaches.
Career Blueprint: An overview

Rationale
The rationale for implementing a competence-based approach in Canada was as follows: relatively few people currently have the skills of career and life management; too many adults end up in jobs due to happenstance rather than informed choice; making a single choice of career between 16 and 21 years of age, and expecting this to be for life is no longer an appropriate career choice paradigm; and inappropriate career choices cost society a great deal in terms of dropout, unemployment and blighted lives. Apart from the enormous cost to individuals, it constitutes a waste of human capital and reduces productivity and competitiveness.
A brief history of the Blueprint

The Blueprint approach originated from a set of developmental guidelines formulated in the USA, which mapped the competencies needed to enable people to manage their own careers. The Blueprint for Life/Work Designs stemmed from 10 years of research and development with thousands of career practitioners and educators across the United States in creating and refining the career development competency framework in the National Career Development Guidelines. The team at the National Life/Work Centre and other agencies in Canada contextualised the framework for a Canadian setting. The first step in creating the Blueprint under the supervision of experts from across Canada was to re-write the U.S. Guidelines with Canadian spelling, terminology and resources. The next was to pilot the draft Blueprint across Canada. Two stages and four years of pilots, in diverse public and private sector agencies in all regions of Canada, convinced the Canadian partners that the U.S. competency and performance indicator framework was as valid in Canada as in the U.S.A. In 2003 the Australian government identified the need for a unifying career development framework and endorsed the work to develop the Canadian Blueprint in their national context. Miles Morgan were commissioned to undertake the work and involved career practitioners and academics across the country to develop the new framework. In 2005, at 26 trial sites throughout Australia, public and private sector organisations, including schools, universities, TAFEs (Australian equivalent to FE colleges), training organisations and companies, worked with Miles Morgan staff to test the Blueprints utility for creating effective career and transition programs and products for both young people and adults.
The Blueprint Framework

The Blueprint is a framework of eleven career competencies for individuals, with indicators describing outcomes, arranged in three areas: Personal Management; Learning and Work Exploration; and Life/Work Building. The approach offers a common language and structure for planning, developing and reviewing services, programmes and activities, and can be adapted to suit people of all ages. It includes incremental stages, intended to reflect the development of competence at different stages of life. The Blueprint approach also acknowledges that there are different ways in which we learn to become competent and apply that learning, and breaks down that process into: Acquisition how we gain knowledge and become competent; Application how we experience the knowledge we have acquired; Personalisation integrating acquired and applied knowledge; and Actualisation striving towards our full potential for ourselves and in the community.
Blueprint career competencies by area and phase1

Career Phase I competencies Area A: Personal Management 1.1 Build a positive self1. Build and maintain image while a positive self-image discovering its influence on self and others. 2.1 Develop 2. Interact positively abilities for and effectively with building positive others relationships in life (1). 3. Change and grow throughout life 3.1 Discover that change and growth are part of life. Phase II 1.2 Build a positive selfimage and understand its influence on life and work. 2.2 Develop abilities for building positive relationships in life (II). 3.2 Learn to respond to change and growth (1). Phase III Phase IV
1.3 Develop abilities to maintain a positive selfimage. 2.3 Develop abilities for building positive relationships in life and work. 3.3 Learn to respond to change and growth (II).
1.4 Improve on abilities to maintain a positive selfimage. 2.4 Improve abilities for building positive relationships in life and work. 3.4 Develop strategies for responding to life and work changes.
This chart is taken from the Australian Blueprint
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Area B : Learning and work exploration 4. Participate in life-long learning supportive of career goals 4.1 Discover lifelong learning and its contribution to life and work. 4.2 Link lifelong learning to personal career aspirations, both present and future. 4.3 Link life-long learning to the career building process. 5.3 Locate, interpret, evaluate and use career information. 4.4 Participate in continuous learning supportive of career goals. 5.4 Locate, interpret, evaluate and use career information (II). 6.4 Understand how societal and economic needs influence the nature and structure of work (II). 7.4 Improve on abilities to seek, obtain/create and maintain work. 8.4 Incorporate adult life reality into career decision-making.
5.2 Locate, 5.1 Discover and 5. Locate and understand effectively use career understand career and use career information information. information.
6.3 Understand how societal 6. Understand the 6.1 Discover how 6.2 Understand and economic relationship between work contributes how work needs influence work, society and the to individuals and contributes to the the nature and the community. community. economy structure of work (I). Area C: Career building 7.1 Explore 7. Secure/create and effective work maintain work strategies. 7.2 Develop qualities to seek and obtain/create work. 7.3 Develop abilities to seek, obtain/create and maintain work.
8. Make career enhancing decisions
8.1 Explore and 8.2 Link decision- 8.3 Engage in improve decision- making to career career decisionmaking. building. making. 9.2 Explore and understand the interrelationship of life roles (II).
9.1 Explore and 9. Maintain balanced understand the life and work roles interrelationship of life roles (I).
9.4 Incorporate 9.3 Link lifestyles life/work balance and life stages to into the career career building. building process. 10.4 Understand and learn to overcome stereotypes in life and work building (II). 11.4 Manage the career building process.
10. Understand the changing nature of life and work roles
10.3 Understand and learn to 10.1 Discover the 10.2 Explore nonovercome nature of life and traditional life stereotypes in life work roles. and work options. and work building (I). 11.1 Explore the underlying concepts of the career building process. 11.2 Understand and experience the process of career building. 11.3 Recognise and take charge of the career building process.
11. Understand, engage in and manage the career building process
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Intended use of the Blueprint

The reported benefits of developing and using the Blueprint approach in Canada and Australia have been trialled and researched. The Canadians have found that approaches based on the Blueprint enable individuals to take control of their own career development in a structured way, to gain confidence and self-reliance and to connect with work that really suits them by improving the match between talents and opportunities. The Blueprint can also be used to support curriculum design and development, the review of career and tutorial programmes, the careers resources and materials made available to individuals and the nature of one-to-one and group interventions. It provides a common framework for assessing the effectiveness and impact of CLIAG related interventions and can enable providers to measure progress in career learning in a different way. The Blueprint supports lifelong career development and management and in that way ensures greater consistency in provision, facilitates transitions between different phases of education and of life, prevents duplication and supports progression in career learning.
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The Blueprint for Careers Trials

Introduction
In 2009/2010 LSIS received funding from the Department for Children, Families and Schools (DCSF) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to conduct a small trial of the Blueprint in England. In 2010/2011 LSIS provided funding for an extended trial of the Blueprint approach involving twenty-four organisations initially, in a wider range of settings and a longer six month timescale. The overall purpose of this trial phase was to explore the applicability of the Career Blueprint in England and to inform the development of a Blueprint for England. In line with the Australian trials of the Blueprint, and the first trial in England, particular attention was paid to levels of impact in achieving Blueprint aims and objectives and more specifically: Usability; Complexity of the approach; Language; Use with different types of learners; Likely uses and benefits; and Future development.
The sample
A number of participant organisations were recruited on a voluntary basis to take part in this small pilot. The twenty-four original trial sites included a primary school; two secondary schools; sixthform colleges, some with their network of secondary schools; FE colleges, including a land-based organisation, and a work based learning provider; two universities and an adult and community learning service for a large rural county. There was some attrition in the sample and the final number of organisations taking part in the trial was 19 although the work of the all trial sites was taken into consideration when forming the final conclusions about the future development of the Blueprint for Careers for England.
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The trial process

The trial site representatives were invited to a briefing two months before the trial start date to discuss the implementation of the Careers Blueprint and to formulate an action plan based on initial areas of interest. In addition to receiving a reference guide, those involved were shown to the materials available on the Canadian and Australian Blueprint websites. Both of these websites contain a comprehensive set of useful (CLIAG) materials related to the implementation of the Blueprint approach. Using the Canadian document Blueprint for Life/Work Designs: The Quick Reference Guide and the practical implementation guide available on the website and the Australian materials, participants in the trial indicated the areas they wished to pilot. Initially these projects included reviewing the curriculum and current programme; reviewing careers resources and helping learners to assess the extent of their competence in career planning, although it was noted that the pilot organisations aims and the scope of their trials were modified as the trials progressed. This was also noted in the first trial in 2009/10. Most of the trials were undertaken over a six-month period and involved senior managers, CLIAG staff and other key stakeholders in the implementation. Communication with the LSIS project team during the trial was by phone, email and face-to-face meetings. In some cases those undertaking the trial also met at regional meetings, which led to some useful networking. A de-briefing workshop was held for all trial organisations at the end of the trial period to capture the main feedback and findings. Several workshops were run to elicit trial participants views of the future scope for a Blueprint for Careers for England. In addition, each trial organisation was given a structured framework for evaluation and wrote up their experiences as a short case study, highlighting the approach they took and realisation of any benefits. The case studies are documented below and highlight an interesting array of insights and findings in using the Career Blueprint approach. Findings from the de-briefing workshops are also reported here.
Limitations of the trial

this study only looks at the Canadian/Australian Blueprint approach and other competencebased approaches were not examined; some types of organisations were not represented, for example offender learning and specialist colleges, therefore any findings are only likely to be indicative in some settings; the timeframe was six months. This was likely to have an impact on what could be attempted and achieved within the timescales and limit the potential findings; and the scale of these trials was limited and therefore the findings could not be directly compared to the trial evaluations reported elsewhere in Canada and Australia, although observations can be made with caveats.
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The trial case studies - a summary of impact activity

Organisation Lincolnshire County Council School Improvement Service (CfBT) Stockton Riverside College Description of Blueprint Activity Using the Blueprint career framework to support online professional development in Lincolnshire County Council. Building career development into college programmes. Type of Provider Local Authority
FE/HE College
North Hertfordshire College South Essex College, Southend. Chesterfield College
Using competencies to embed employability FE College within the curriculum. Using a further education learner needs FE/HE College assessment & Blueprint tutorial programme. Using the Blueprint framework to develop self management skills in AS Students. Involving learners in developing materials to be used in the initial assessment of the career development needs of learners. FE/HE College
Sandwell College
FE/HE College
Wolverhampton College
Trialling the Blueprint framework to integrate motivation into career planning for FE/HE College foundation learners. To develop an existing CLIAG programme. Developing a Blueprint careers education programme within work based learning. Exploring the links between the Blueprint and existing programmes to further develop career development. Reviewing SOARing to Success: a curriculum enhancement model for personalised student development. Land based FE/HE College WBL
Bicton College Devon Nottinghamshire Training Network (NTN- Training)
Somerset Skills and Learning
Adult & Community Learning
University of Bedfordshire
University
Incorporating use of Canadian Blueprint materials for self awareness and assessment University of West of England University of progression of career planning in the Graduate Futures Award.
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unionlearn
Reviewing unionlearns Supporting Learners resources against the Blueprint. Examining the degree of correlation between The Blueprint Framework and WEXABILITY- a Key Stage 4 work experience teaching programme.
Union
St Joan of Arc School, Rickmansworth
Secondary School
John Warner School, Hoddesdon, near Bishop Stortford
Using the Blueprint to develop a new careers education/career learning programme as Secondary School part of the economic wellbeing sessions as part of lifelong learning lessons. Exploration of decision making competencies against Blueprint competencies in three 6th Form College separate student cohorts aged 15, 16 and 17 years in NE Lincolnshire. Using the Blueprint to work with learners to find employment and work based learning opportunities on leaving college. 6th Form College
Franklin 6th form college, Grimsby Richard Huish College, Taunton, Somerset Esher College, Surrey Suffolk Chamber of Commerce
Analysing decision making processes amongst learners pursuing higher education 6th form College and employment post 16. Developing an all-age service. All-age
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The Blueprint Trials - evidence of impact

In trialling the Blueprint framework the trial organisations chose from a variety of potential aims and objectives mainly from the Canadian Blueprint and these included: A. Identify individual learner competencies and develop plans to address gaps B. Review a career development product to determine the competencies it targets C. Review an existing specific program or curriculum D. Create a specific programme E. Review an existing comprehensive delivery system F. Develop a comprehensive career development system G. Play a supporting role to those directly involved with career development programming The trial case studies are captured and reported under the same headings. Individual sites expectations and objectives changed during the course of the trial process, expanding when new opportunities arose and new understanding and synergies with other activities came to light, and sometimes changing direction in line with resources and access to different types of learners. A number of organisations addressed more than one objective and this is reflected in the individual case studies presented in this section.
Evidence of Impact
Trial sites were asked to collect evidence of impact and comment on the usefulness of the framework in achieving their objectives. They were particularly asked to note any impact on learners, their team, the organisation and themselves as careers practitioners and/or deliverers of CLIAG. An impact survey was also implemented post trial to capture the trial sites views and feedback.
Aim A: Identify individual learner CLIAG competencies and develop plans to address gaps
A significant number of organisations chose this area to trial the Blueprint. In some cases for the purpose of identifying a specific competency area known to be less developed or more in demand in the current climate. The following excerpts from the trial case studies, for example, illustrate the benefits of using the Blueprint to improve decision making for a range of learners. Other trial sites used the Blueprint framework as an overall initial assessment of all the competencies to gauge where their learners were in relation to their development of career management skills.
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Exploration of decision making competencies in three separate student cohorts aged 15, 16 and 17 years in NE Lincolnshire, Franklin College Summary
Franklin Sixth Form College had evidence from recent years that their learners made unconsidered and unrealistic choices of programmes of full-time further study at age 16. This was demonstrated in the number of students making critical course changes and career direction changes at age 16-17 having already started out on a full time college programme. The result of the changes led to additional years of study or students leaving college because they could not start appropriate new programmes in year. This was a collaborative project involving a range of guidance staff and a number of organisations including a feeder secondary school and a pupil referral unit. The trial initially established the base line position of the range and level of decision making skills of the three different cohorts of students age 15, 16 and 17 against Blueprint competencies. Then, separate guidance programmes for each cohort were structured with a focus on developing decision making competencies.
Impact
It was observed that the programme and engagement of well informed and trained impartial outsiders created a greater sense of purpose and challenge. Students were able to ask pertinent questions individually and as a group and find that there was immediate up to date accurate information on hand. Staff realised that there were gaps in many areas of students knowledge of progression pathways and the costs and benefits of different routes. The materials developed were evaluated by the students and staff and found to be well received and effective. The impact was similar in all three settings; the provision of the programme had improved the skills of learners, particularly in the area of making more realistic decisions. One of the key findings was the clear need to introduce these competencies at an earlier age and to ensure that career management skills were more widely embedded in the curriculum for these settings. I feel it is essential within CEIAG (Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance)for the Blueprint competencies to be introduced in learning well before age16 and to be an important part of the education of all young people The young people, when they have been present and engaged, have worked very well and have been very positive about the process. I also feel that running the trial will enable this group of young people to make an informed decision earlier than if we had not involved them in the programme but there is still a lot of work to be done. Referral Unit
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Analysing Decision Making Skills, Esher College Summary

At Esher Sixth Form College, CLIAG staff had become increasingly aware that as the college had grown to over 1800 A level students and that as the pre-16 background of the students became more varied (over 250 feeder schools) that there were more students, including gap year students, who were struggling to gain the skills required to make decisions concerning university applications. The number of students, who were dissatisfied with their university course choices several months after completing the UCAS form, had grown considerably over the last couple of years. Using competency 8 of the Blueprint Making Life/Work Enhancing Decisions, the college analysed the tutor programme, profiling activities and feedback from student focus groups. The college identified the reported reasons students couldnt make the decisions required and what activities/initiatives could be added to the student experience to improve this. The impact of the new activities is to be evaluated at the end of the 2010/11 academic year.
Impact
The college reported that students found several of the activities offered by the college helped them gain the skills needed to successfully choose five universities to put on their UCAS form. They found help from family, friends and sessions offered by University Student Recruitment departments on How to Choose a University beneficial and used the tools they were taught in these sessions to help them make decisions. However, students were not as confident over their choice of a course. Using the same decision making tools they were confused and found it hard to make a choice. They reported much less help from parents and family in making the subject choice and felt that parents especially placed more emphasis on the choice of the university, leaving the subject area much more to the student. Students often found the terminology on university department web sites difficult to understand and also found many sites out of date in terms of information and grades, hence making the choice even more difficult. The college also noted that many universities have reported that students enrolled onto inappropriate courses caused issues around retention and recruitment. As a result of the above observations the college are implementing a number of initiatives for the 2012 entry cycle to help students make a better match between themselves and the subject area and employment. These include expansion of subject seminars led by academics from universities; additional interview and group work opportunities on decision making and incorporating elements of the Blueprint competency on the profiling section of the college portal.
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Using the Blueprint career framework to develop Self Management Skills in AS Students, Chesterfield College Summary
Chesterfield College is a large FE college offering a range of vocational courses and an A level programme. Recently a new virtual Sixth Form has been established and the IAG Manager was asked to develop a suitable tutorial programme for the students. A level students have very little included in their curriculum in relation to employability and career management skills in comparison with students on the more vocational programmes. Thus it was decided that the trial should be aimed at AS students and, given the timescale, concentrate on the Personal Management competencies in section one of the Blueprint. An aspect of this trial was also to raise tutor awareness of the importance of developing learners to be able to manage their career and more specifically: develop personal effectiveness, specifically a positive self concept and working with others in order that students can get the most out of their college experience; help students explore how mental and physical health can impact on life and work decisions; and help students describe and demonstrate how to handle stressful situations in order to prepare them for future issues. A total of thirteen sessions were undertaken and two hundred students were involved in eleven tutor groups. Another element of the trial was to endeavour to initiate a fresh approach to careers work as the view was that students in post-sixteen education came with a range of previous experiences in terms of this activity and consequently were often quite jaded in their approach. In addition it was also hoped that materials developed could be used within other areas of the college and also possibly adapted for access by students via the intranet.
Impact
The college felt it was important to get some immediate feedback both in order to contribute to the spirit of the process but also to inform future practice in the college. A focus group of tutors reported positively that the lesson plans were good and easy to follow. Tutors felt that the themes were good and engaged groups and helped them bond with the students. They also reported that the more interactive sessions (the ones inspired by the Blueprint material but altered) went down best. They also had suggestions on how to improve the programme. A focus group of students reported that the idea was good but they felt that the format could be improved. They particularly enjoyed the activity in groups and valued the opportunity to discuss issues with each other, for example, stress levels. The students suggested more group work and discussion based activity and topics they would like to cover. These predictably were
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very information laden rather than the more difficult topics which require self reflection but they also included an idea to discuss world issues within tutorials in order to raise awareness of what is happening globally. This was felt to be an excellent idea and relevant to those applying for higher education, officer training in the armed forces and professional jobs where they may be questioned about what they know of current issues. The post-session questionnaire results indicated that many of the students rated their competences lower than they did on the initial baseline questionnaire. This was an interesting finding and staff felt it could be for a number of reasons. The more challenging environment of A levels and college could have injected more realism into students perceptions and therefore they assessed themselves more realistically the second time. The programme itself may have contributed to this as students were required to consider aspects of themselves they found difficult but which nonetheless were vital in making realistic career plans. The college intends to place materials on the staff intranet for colleagues to use in tutorials and eventually stand alone activities will be developed to go on the student intranet. They are considering adapting some of the materials into self study options so that when personal tutors are working one to one they can refer students with specific needs directly to the appropriate material. The IAG Manager also intends to suggest that a further trial of modified materials is undertaken in the next academic year.
Incorporating the use of Canadian Blueprint materials for self awareness and assessment of progression of career planning into the course- Graduate Futures Award with ILM Level 3 Award in Effective Management, University of the West of England (UWE)
Made me think about areas / skills I am good at and what I still need to work on
Summary
UWE Bristol is a large, new university with a broad range of learners. It has 30,000 students of whom about 5,000 are part time and around 3,500 staff providing undergraduate and postgraduate education. UWE Careers are part of the universitys Students Services Department and the service aims to help students and graduates access skills, experience and knowledge to improve their employability prospects. The Graduate Futures Award is a pilot programme of a new initiative aims to provide a more intensive intervention for students who typically find it difficult to gain graduate level jobs, over and above other provision currently provided by the university. This programme was designed to develop students employability and enterprise skills in the wider context of the graduate labour market in order to transform the students perception of themselves and their place in
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this market. In this pilot three target groups were chosen, namely final year Psychology, English and Business School non placement students. All students were required to have, or commit to gaining, recent work experience (within the last 12 months) which could include part time work in any setting, volunteering, formal work experience etc. The Blueprint materials were trialled as part of this pilot programme as a way of enabling students to assess their career competencies. One of the needs of the programme was to enable students to assess where they were in terms of career planning and where they wanted to be. As this award was aimed at students from a variety of backgrounds, with varying levels of experience and maturity, it was important to use a tool that looked at career planning in the wider context and the opportunity to use the Blueprint enabled this broader view.
Impact
Evaluation of the materials was collected via feedback forms from students attending the course on the days and through discussion with the tutors delivering the programme. Analysis of the student feedback forms showed that around half of the students found the framework to be useful as a structure for thinking about their career competencies and development. There was a majority consensus that it helped people clarify where they were and how they could improve / develop. The Blueprint gave a useful indication of the different levels of each stage of competency. Also how I could progress in each. Helped me to identify things that I need to confront however some of the wording was confusing Another interesting comment from one student was that: The Blueprint appeared to be designed for someone who is more advanced in their career, but it is still an effective way of viewing skills. I have more relevant skills than I realised The feedback from the tutors using the materials on day one was that the students really struggled with the format of the tables and got bogged down in the meaning of the language used and the complexity of thinking about their life/ careers in this way. An observation from the course generally is that many students have real difficulty articulating their skills and what their strengths and weaknesses are and that this way of thinking about themselves is something quite new to them. The conclusion reached by the tutors was that as a tool for professionals to review, map, plan and measure career programmes and provision the Blueprint was very useful. There is still a need for some rationalisation of the phases and levels and clarification around some of the language used and its relevance to English culture in fact the Australian version was chosen as this seemed closer to the English setting than the Canadian one. As it stands the tutors remain unconvinced about the use of these materials directly with clients without some revisions.
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One of the aspects of working in the higher education context is the emphasis on the need for intellectual rigour inherent in employability and career development, from the academic staff across the institution. Research such as that provided by the Blueprint is vital in this. As a body of knowledge it is very useful in terms of providing weight to the case for the importance of equipping individuals for life long career well-being and happiness and the key significance of professionalism in this arena.
Involving learners in developing materials that can be used in the initial assessment of the career development needs of learners at Sandwell College Summary
Sandwell College is a general further education college situated in the West Midlands, the college is located within the Sandwell local authority and part of an area known as the Black Country. The college provides a range of vocational courses from three campuses and it also delivers work based learning and a growing range of higher education courses. The aim of the trial was to use the Blueprint to develop resources to enable learners to assess themselves against the Blueprint framework in relation to their career development competence by the use of a career profile questionnaire. It was envisaged that this would enable the learner to highlight and understand their initial, on course and longer term guidance needs by receiving feedback and support when required. The college would gain information on the guidance needs of its learners and this would influence the future provision of CLIAG within the college. The survey used for initial assessment was intended to be visual and help learners understand more about the stages/phases of the Blueprint and how this related to their career development. An existing survey from the Australian Blueprint resources was used, but completely re-worked with the help and feedback from learners and subsequently, thoroughly piloted. The Blueprint was introduced to curriculum staff and tutors through a power-point presentation and informal discussion of its main aspects. In total forty students, drawn from the curriculum areas of Business and Childcare, completed the survey. Both groups of students were level 3 or BTEC National students who normally enter employment or university after their studies at Sandwell College. The survey results of the two curriculum areas indicated some similarities as both scored similarly on Career Management, which may support a common approach to career learning on some aspects of the curriculum. Overall, there were more differences between these two groups of learners indicating the need for the curriculum and CLIAG service to adopt different topics to meet their needs.
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Impact
The trial produced learners who were more aware of their strengths in managing their career development and more aware of the development work needed to address areas in which they were found to be weaker. Learner feedback was encouraging as they stated an immediate benefit from the results, since, for many it was the first time that they had received feedback on their career development and learning. Learners welcomed the opportunity to reflect on their career learning and commented on the greater perception of their career development in terms of the areas in which they felt confident and areas in which they need to improve. Both learners and staff commented on how they enjoyed the opportunity to contribute on how the survey should be worded and structured. Learner ownership of their own career development was increased. For instance, both learners and staff felt that they were provided with a valuable insight into career development needs. Learner comments included: I feel that things make sense now in terms of my career and I know what I need to improve It was good to reflect on how I have learned about my career Staff were better able to identify the priorities in career development needs for the two groups, both on an individual and group basis. Learners were given a means to voice what they would like in terms of career development and to really shape provision. Individual feedback helped learners to celebrate their strengths alongside an overview of areas that they needed to develop. The result was that planning and support could be arranged to meet these needs by the learners themselves alongside teaching and career staff. Senior managers could be confident that good use was being made of the resources available to deliver careers. The quantitative data that was generated by the project has provided a wealth of feedback that can be analysed and interpreted by curriculum teams and the career service. The scope of this data could in future be increased to measure the distance travelled in terms of the career development of learners and the impact of provision delivered. The development of an electronic or online survey would ensure that feedback could be analysed by learners themselves, the curriculum and careers team. Career support and activities could be planned and targeted more specifically to meet the needs of learners. The completion of the survey resulted in some targeted work with two different groups of learners as mentioned above. Initial feedback from the learners indicated that they were pleased that they had careers activities and support delivered to them based on an analysis of their career development needs.
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Aim B: Review a career development product to determine the competencies it targets

A number of organisations chose this objective to be the focus of their trial and others have incorporated elements of this approach (see Lincolnshire County Council case study under Aim F.) As the following case study shows this had led to increased confidence that the staff had the right resources to cover a wide range of requirements. For others, the Blueprint was a tool for them to structure their resources and to also highlight any gaps or opportunities to develop new materials.
Reviewing unionlearn Supporting Learners resources against the Blueprint, unionlearn Summary
Unionlearn have developed a range of resources to help ensure that union learners at all levels receive the best possible information and advice to help them progress in learning and work. Unionlearn work with adult learners therefore the majority of the analysis was carried out looking at the Level 4 competencies, although it is felt that adult learners could potentially be at any of the levels, at any time in their life. The main objective for the trial was to see how the unionlearn existing products compare to the 11 Blueprint competencies. A sample of key resources were selected which include the unionlearn Learning and Careers Advice Service website and the unionlearn Supporting Learners Guides. There was also specific interest in the online resource the union learning Climbing Frame. The aim of the project was to see where the Blueprint fits and see whether any new resources could be created or improvements made to existing resources as a result of the trial. Unionlearn also ran a number of events and focus groups where the Blueprint and related activities were introduced and discussed.
Impact
The trial has had a positive impact and has generated discussions both internally and externally. Unionlearn staff have found the results of use and it has highlighted areas where more information could be provided to union earning representatives (ULR) and learners. Utilising the Blueprint showed how many of the competencies fitted in nicely with the unionlearn Supporting Learners resources and the ULR role as whole. The activities that most ULRs are engaged in to support learners, are best described as identifying needs, mentoring, coaching and signposting, both to opportunities and to other services. They have a major role to play in building confidence and promoting access all of which was emphasised by the comparison with the Blueprint. The trial highlighted that the online resource, Climbing Frame (www.climbingframe.unionlearn. org.uk) is an important tool for ULRs, providing them with both information and resources to help learners manage their learning and careers. The trial has also been a good platform to promote the Climbing Frame more widely and associate it with the Blueprint as a useful career management resource.
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More generally, people involved in the trial have gained a greater understanding of the content of the unionlearn resources and it has helped highlight how the resources can be better used to help learners. The organisation has found it very useful to know where there are possible gaps with the Supporting Learners materials and the Blueprint has in some ways helped organise the those resources. The trial has also highlighted that the organisation is going along the right track and many of the Blueprint criteria are already fulfilled by the Supporting Learners resources, which is very positive. The Blueprint reflects what unionlearn does and the idea of the holistic framework and the importance of lifelong learning is the very ethos of unionlearn. Many of the ideas raised by the Blueprint for example the concept of work/life balance of great importance to unionlearn and the work it does. Overall the trial indicates that the unionlearn Supporting Learners resources are valuable in equipping ULRs and union members to develop lifelong learning and lifelong career opportunities.
Aim C: Review an existing specific program or curriculum

The organisations in this section used the Blueprint framework to evaluate and develop an existing approach or programme. The trial sites viewed the Blueprint as a comprehensive framework and used it as a benchmarking tool to identify strengths and areas for development in their current programmes.
Exploring the links between the Blueprint and existing programmes to further develop career development for learners, Somerset Skills & Learning Summary
Somerset Skills & Learning (SS&L) is Somerset County Councils adult and work based learning provider. It is community based and delivers from 16 centres and uses 20 other venues such as Village Halls and Libraries. Their project was delivered in the adult learning setting working with marginalised learners who are not employed. The staff involved were members of a discrete team of qualified careers advisers who work on a one to one basis offering impartial IAG and deliver CLIAG which is embedded into courses for unemployed/workless people. SS&L has a programme of Return to Learn courses is long established. All programme courses are delivered in informal settings to people who are low in confidence and looking to prepare to return to learning as part of a longer journey into work. Most learners have below level 2 qualifications or are recovering from periods of ill health. In this case a group of eight learners was recruited through outreach to use the Blueprint framework and to test some of the materials. The aims of the trial were to explore the links between two of the Blueprint areas, namely A and C, and two of the Return to Learn courses and the Blueprint materials were incorporated into the content.
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Impact
The learners liked the idea of a framework and particularly saw its relevance for their children and, once explained to them, they saw that their own levels of confidence and skills development fitted into the framework. They enjoyed the concept of a career path and an aspiration to reach their final goals. Most didnt have goals when they started the course and since they hadnt received career advice from their school they didnt see the relevance when they first started. Feedback from the learners was that they felt that the worksheets were rather school orientated and this brought back unwelcome feelings about their schooldays. They valued an informal approach to learning and, in most cases, didnt know what they wanted to learn and didnt realise that they were learning until they received positive feedback from their tutor. The group felt that although the workbooks were school orientated the concept of a workbook helped them to organise themselves and prepare a portfolio of evidence for accreditation. Initial assessment of learners on the second course, Skills for Jobs, demonstrated that the acquisition stage of these competencies could be applied to most of the learners. The Blueprint helped them to formulate the ILP and review it meaningfully. All learners were unemployed or unwaged for a long period and were experiencing low self esteem in a job market that was flooded with better qualified people. Many once had higher levels of skills but had become deskilled as result of low self esteem or mental illness through lack of contact or support from professional agencies or individuals. This group found the language of the Blueprint difficult and they needed support to access it. However, once supported, they found it a very useful focus for them to consider work options and associated training available to them. The Blueprint covers what you would want from a career, how hard you are prepared to work or study for it, how much it will cost to train or study, your work values and the probability that you will not have job for life and that there may be several career changes due to redundancy. I wish I had received this when I was at school Impact from the project included learners getting jobs some with training. The team have kept in touch with those learners who were successful in gaining employment and encourage them to participate in further training when offered in the workplace. One learner got a job from the Blueprint MYEC group. She had severe depression as a result of financial poverty. Her house was re-possessed before Christmas and she was re-housed on an undesirable estate. Using the Blueprint approach she and her tutor were able to focus on positive outcomes and realistic opportunities for employment would enable her to start to rebuild her life. The Blueprint gave her the realisation that she had the skills and the confidence to apply for jobs. The Blueprint has encouraged them to look forward and see learning as a lifelong process. It has also encouraged them to raise aspirations for their children and support them to value the opportunities presented to them whilst in school. Breaking the cycle in families is a priority for the team. SS&L offers Family Learning activities in schools focus on learning development in the
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child and progression opportunities from these courses are also the start of a learning journey in adulthood. The Blueprint offers a model to support these sequential stages for the learner.
Trialling the Blueprint Framework to integrate motivation into career planning for Foundation Learners, City of Wolverhampton College Summary
When things go wrong or there is disappointing news these learners lose confidence very quickly and the intention was to build strength in the learners using the Blueprint career framework. City of Wolverhampton College is a large, multi campus general further education college with approximately 4,000 full-time and 12,000 part time learners based in Wolverhampton in the Black Country. The focus for their Blueprint trial was foundation learners. The college was reshaping the foundation curriculum and felt it was timely to trial some of the Blueprint competencies. The college staff wanted to start the development of a career programme that engaged foundation learners on entry level and level one programmes. Feedback indicated that careers education in the past had not enthused learners and the intention of this pilot was to enable them to grow a stronger motivation to develop career resilience and to build confidence in individuals to acquire skills that they learn retain and adapt in new environments. The college use The Pacific Institute programme (PX2), a two day motivational programme that is very interactive and encourages participants to believe that they can be what they want to be and is supported by goal setting processes. Their experience so far was that many learners found this programme to be very motivating and had led to an improved intrinsic understanding of life choices and personal decision-making. The intention for the Blueprint trial was to enhance the goal setting experience of PX2 by mapping it against the Blueprint competencies for Personal Management [area A competencies] Work experience was also an important part of the foundation learning curriculum. The Blueprint competencies in Area B were trialled with two groups of learners to prepare them for work experience and review learner progress. A career community, made up of personal tutors, college IAG/careers staff and Connexions would support the delivery of CLIAG using the Blueprint competencies.
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Impact
The outcomes of the trial were monitored against an agreed action plan. The team met regularly to review progress on timescales and take regular verbal feedback from staff and learners on each aspect of the project. The outcomes for the project that were achieved include: The foundation learners responded positively to the Blueprint competencies in area B Learning and Work Exploration. All learners completed the PX2 programme and blended competencies from the Blueprint and were able to write short and long term goals. The learners engaged positively with the real and concrete practicalities of work experience and participated fully in individual and group preparations. It was the intention of the team to monitor this progress alongside classroom performance and continued goal setting through tutoring processes. Staff utilised the Blueprint framework to conduct individual interviews and assessment of work experience requirements, previously discussed on a group basis. The result was a high level of access to work experience and take up of these opportunities by groups of learners for whom it has not always been easy to acquire work placements. The development of a career community focussing support on foundation learners using Blueprint as a focus has had a promising start and the trial had a motivating influence on staff. They liked the simplicity of the Blueprint competencies and the flexibility of it as a model to be adapted to the needs of learners at individual and group level. Building upon practice within the Blueprint project has seen the formation of an Opportunities Adviser post to assist with screening learners entering foundation learning programmes to ensure their suitability and their aspirations are consistent (i.e. aspiring to work in a nursery with an unsuitable Criminal Records Bureau check). This screening will in turn ensure supportive and appropriate advice and guidance. Foundation learners responded less well to the PX2 programme than learners at level 2 and 3. The concepts of changing personal self belief, moving in and out of comfort zones and creating a future proved to be challenging. It was recognised that the concepts will need to be introduced differently for these learners. This may have been influenced by the language also the content. The learners responded best to very active and practical exercises to introduce the concepts. They were also less willing to take risks with their peers, to share appropriately and engage in discussion. However on day 2 of the programme participation became easier and learners were more confident to participate in exercises. Through the one to one assessments and individual career assessments learners in this project became more aware of the opportunities available to them and the constraints they may experience in reaching their aspirations. This may not previously have been apparent and will in future lead to a more informed and appropriate choice of work placements.
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Examining the degree of correlation between The Blueprint framework and WEXABILITY- a Key Stage 4 work experience teaching programme, St Joan of Arc RC School. Summary
St Joan of Arc RC is a Voluntary Aided, Roman Catholic School located in Rickmansworth, south west Hertfordshire. Students join St Joan of Arc in year 7 coming from a wide geographical area reflecting the faith component of the schools admissions policy. The school is an 11-18 mixed school with 1270 students on role and 230 in the 6th form. Senior leaders highly value careers work and the personal development of its students and to this end have appointed a specialist careers leader under contract from HCS Careers Ltd to lead and manage all aspects of careers education in years 7-13. The Blueprint trial allowed the school to revisit the year 10 work experience elements. The primary aim was to explore the fit between an existing taught programme that aids the preparation of year 10/11 students for work experience called WexAbility and the Blueprint Competency Framework in the context of changing economic circumstances and governmental educational priorities. In addition the secondary aim was to check that the language of Blueprint works for year 11 learners in this context. It was decided that the age of learners related to level 3 of the Blueprint but prior knowledge of the learners understanding indicated that the phase 2 was likely to be more appropriate. The first task was the creation of a template of the Level 2 career competencies and indicators. Having completed the template it was necessary to dissect the intended learning outcomes from each of the chapters in Wexability and align them with each competence and indicator. Interestingly, the school found that the process of aligning the indictors brought the Blueprint framework to life, thus providing tangible and meaningful illustrations. Each section of the work experience programme has its own desirable learning outcomes and it is these that were carefully correlated with the Blueprint career competencies as is illustrated below.
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Short extract from the completed Stage 2 template

WEXABILITY Blueprint Competency Correlation Personal Management Build and Maintain a Positive Self Image and understand its influence on ones life and work Section 1: Setting Personal Goals. Parts 123456 Section 2: Think Safe 2B Safe. Parts 23 Section 3: How To Get Hired Not Fired Parts 1234 Section 4: What Have I Got To Offer Parts 1234 Explore individual skills, knowledge and attitudes required to fulfil different life roles.
1.2.1
Section 1: Setting Personal Goals. Parts 123456 Section 2: Think Safe 2B Safe. Parts PP+13 1.2.2 Section 3: How To Get Hired Not Fired Parts 1234 Section 4: What Have I Got To Offer Parts 124 Section 5: The Final Show Parts 12
Understand how ones behaviour influences the feelings and actions of others.
Impact
The most successful element of the trial was the straight forward act of establishing the degree of fit between the framework and WexAbility. The presentation of WexAbility lends itself to the mapping process and the degree of career relatedness of both Blueprint and Wexability were strong. Least successful has been the second phase of implementation, that of helping staff and students see the correlation and understand the language and value of the Blueprint in the context of Wexability and how to use it effectively. The impact has been felt by a number of people at different levels. Senior Leaders: They feel that the time and effort that has been put into the trial has been vindicated. They are aware of the benefits of Blueprint and see even greater value in WexAbility and would now want to see the student population beginning to understand better what that means for them. Directors at HCS Careers: Having developed the product they were keen to see how Blueprint correlated. They were aware that the WexAbility fit was good in respect of other careers related frameworks and quality assurance criteria but had no idea if the fit with Blueprint careers competencies would be useful or insightful. HCS Careers are delighted with the outcome of the initial research and keen to work with us to share the information more widely and to develop strategies to support the training and implementation with staff and students in learning.
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Staff in school: Less of an impact and more time and strategies were required to help staff understand the language and value of Blueprint. To date they are not sufficiently aware of Blueprint, its rationale and value. Students: Much more work is required to find strategies that help them connect with the language of Blueprint generally and specifically in respect of preparation for work experience. Careers Department: Major impact on the careers department. Primarily the trial was used to validate the impact on student learning in preparation for work experience; however, it was also noted that students develop careers competencies through WexAbility in readiness for transition for their next stage in learning and work is at the heart of the allocated curriculum time.
Building framework based career development into an FE based programme for the unemployed, Stockton Riverside College Summary
Stockton Riverside College (SRC) is a major provider of further education in the Tees Valley. The SRC trial focused on learners referred through a project called Work Focussed training. The learners need to be unemployed and in receipt of Job Seekers Allowance to be eligible and attend the same courses as mainstream learners, with some adaption to suit the requirements of this particular client group. Learners are also able to study units of qualifications and complete them in the workplace and the courses are also aligned very closely with jobs available in the current labour market. Research is carried out regularly in this project so the training offer does change to suit the climate. SRC focused on the Area A: Personal Management of the Blueprint framework for example to build and maintain a positive self concept; interact positively and effectively with others and change and grow throughout life. This particular learner group typically suffer with lack of confidence, low self esteem and poor communication skills. Learners can find a college environment very intimidating and challenging and even turning up for their initial appointment is an achievement. Using the Blueprint framework, SRC researched the different courses that learners attend both at college and with outside providers, during the time they are unemployed, and identified where the Blueprint competencies were being addressed and where there were gaps and overlap. SRC felt the latter was very important as learners often end on a carousel of training/work sessions.
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Impact
SRC Choices Destinations Questionnaires and Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) were used to record learner information at course exit interviews. The key learning points from this experience are that SRC are now much more aware of the competencies that are delivered across each curriculum area throughout the college and with external providers as part of the client journey and as such can make an easier decision from the list of competencies which ones could be taken forward to delivery and which made the biggest difference to learners. From the qualitative data collected for this trial. There were many examples of positive feedback from learners. I am not panicking as much as I did when I first came to college and entered a classroom, I have learnt to calm down and feel much more confident I cannot believe I have passed an exam and am progressing onto the next level We have all gelled as a group and become firm friends and we have arranged to meet after the course has finished Certain vocational courses did not include any competencies relating to self-esteem or building confidence for example IT. Alot of learners who attended this course had not used computers before and quite often attended one or two classes and did not return. This was an area where SRC felt they could include Area A competencies in the delivery in the first couple of sessions to put the learner at ease, this could be aligned with job search or CV building. Health & Social Care covered these competencies so SRC would need to look further into other competencies that could be included in this curriculum area to further extend and enhance the experience for learners, or to offer an increased awareness and ability within the competency, supporting the learner in moving up the scale in the blueprint framework. With regard to the external providers, it is only recently that clients are being referred to the programme and there clearly is duplication as most of the providers are addressing the skills of building self-confidence and interacting with others. Change and Growth is an area that was not really covered so this is something SRC could include in their delivery. This is an area that is not currently covered either externally or internally and could be an area of focus to ensure clients are fully equipped at all stages of their career journey. This was thought to be helpful as although the providers work together they support clients at very different stages throughout their unemployment. With regard to the competency on Growth and Change, SRC notes that learners coming through the project are asked about their coping mechanisms for change and pressure as part of the induction process in the area of skills and abilities and their examples or answers are noted on their ILP. Quite a few learners have not experienced this and tend to worry about this happening in their careers so Change and Growth could be added to curriculum areas.
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Aim D: Create a specific CLIAG programme

This approach was used to meet the specific needs of a group of learners or alternatively to embed a particular area of skill and competency such as employability.
Using the Blueprint to work with learners to find employment and work based learning opportunities on leaving college, Richard Huish College Summary
Richard Huish, a sixth form college based in south west England, recognised that there were a large number of students who for various reasons, not least the impact of the proposed changes to HE funding, who were now deciding that higher education was not their destination of choice, and were intending to find employment or work based learning opportunities on leaving college. It was this group that the college was keen to target to help them access and achieve these opportunities programme was designed to support the acquisition of relevant skills and activities put in place to encourage the students to take responsibility for researching and applying for placements and vacancies themselves. The college also felt that it was important to try and convey to the students what was in it for them which in turn would promote their interest and enthusiasm for the subject. The planned activity appeared to link naturally with The Blueprint Framework and the Blueprint matrix was used to suggest the broad topics areas that would need to be covered an overall scheme of work was drawn up and agreed by relevant managers and those who would potentially be involved with the delivery of the sessions. It was decided to concentrate on raising awareness of transferrable and personal skills and how to present these in the job application process, and encourage the students to take responsibility themselves for researching specific career information. The students also completed the initial self-assessment questionnaire from the Canadian Blueprint resources and it was explained to them how the self-assessment activities they would be completing to identify their skills, interests, values and preferred style of working would be crucial to support any future career planning decisions. This was also reinforced with statistical evidence of how the world of work was changing. Care was taken not to overload the students and the Blueprint concept was drip fed to them during the course of the programme this approach appeared to work well as the students accepted the concept at face value and appeared to have no issues in the terms used to discuss career skills development.
Impact
Positive ratings from learners on their knowledge, skills, confidence and enjoyment of the career building sessions, and specifically in encouraging the students to reflect on the recognition that personal skills as well as qualifications would help them meet the demands of the changing world of work and possible enforced career changes.
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In conclusion, the Blueprint was useful as a starting point to understand the concept of Career and Personal Skills development and as a planning tool to support the design and development of programme content. The college felt It provided clarity of the purpose and framework for the programme and was useful in the research phase. It provided a useful self-assessment tool to use with learners and in addition, raised the self confidence of the staff to undertake structuring programme design and delivery.
Blueprint careers education programme within work based learning, Nottinghamshire Training Network (NTN) Summary
Nottinghamshire Training Network (NTN) is a not-for-profit organisation that supports Nottinghamshires Work Based Learning (WBL) and the Work Force development (WFD) provider network. It also directly supports young people who are on Foundation Learning or Apprenticeship programmes with Literacy and Numeracy, or mentoring support. It is with this service in mind that NTN engaged with the Blueprint trials. NTN were aware that there were a lot of changes in the sector due to the current economic climate including a reduction in the number of front line careers advisers and an additional requirement for the remaining staff to offer and all age service. With this climate in mind, NTN looked at trialling the Blueprint, in the hope that it could offer an alternative careers guidance tool to young people, and improve the careers planning for all. The team at NTN looked at Competency A: Build and Maintain a Positive Self Image competency with a group of long term unemployed people who were all over 20 years of age. Initially the team considered where they were personally on the competency in question and, using these insights, they then looked at how they could support a person through the levels, enabling them eventually to reach the highest level, 4. They designed a series of workshops that would look at confidence, creating the right impression and communication skills. The Learning and Development Advisers took into consideration where they felt their learners were on the Blueprint Matrix before running the session, for example, all had been unemployed for a long time; some had health issues such as depression, others had very little confidence in what they can offer to an employer and what they were capable of. The sessions were designed to work learners through from level 1 on the Blueprint matrix, to increase their confidence and to avoid overwhelming them, for example, the first session was titled How to Develop Self Confidence and this started by looking at a clip of the New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Team to demonstrate the opinions you form from how someone looks, behaves, sounds etc. Then the learners looked at what affects your confidence, with a view to ensuring that opinions formed about the individual are good ones. Things such as attire, language and body language were looked at. The session then moved through the levels and looked at confidence and its influence on life and work.
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Impact
The impact of running these sessions was increased self confidence by all attendees. One man who attended said that he had feared these sessions when he was told he should do them, but had really enjoyed them, and realised that he had skills and competencies that employers would want. Before finishing the sessions he was told about a potential job vacancy as a gardener which the sessions had helped him identify as a potential career that he would like. With the increased confidence and knowledge about how to present himself and creating the right impression, he secured the position and started work shortly after the course finished. Another impact was that all attendees achieved 100% attendance at the sessions, and requested further support. This was a milestone that NTNs Learning and Development Advisers were pleased to see. For an attendee to request further support showed that they were considering what they need to do next, where they wanted to go, and were identifying suitable progressions for themselves. In some cases this wasnt careers that they wanted to pursue, but more about skills they felt they needed to acquire to progress, which is a huge step and achievement for this cohort.
Using competencies to embed employability within the curriculum, North Hertfordshire College Summary
North Hertfordshire FE College has a total of 7,013 students, and offers a range of academic and vocational courses which attract a diverse range of client groups of all ages between 14 years to adult. The Student Services Careers team undertook the lead role of introducing and implementing the Blueprint work. They chose to measure the impact of employability provision as a focus area because they were already developing the service in the team and it reflected the colleges strategic plan of enterprise and employability. Having researched the existing Blueprint resources available from Canada and particularly Australia the team designed and delivered 24 employability sessions across six curriculum areas with a view to: reviewing and updating sources and format of careers information; using competencies to consider embedding and evaluating employability within the curriculum; and working towards introducing a cross curricular cohesive employability model.
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Impact
Applying the Blueprint to the workshops involved Student Services challenging and updating students concept of career by way of creating more innovative and inspiring workshops. In particular, the Introduction to Employability workshop involved students working in teams designing posters to present their perception of employability, drawing upon student creativity and lateral thinking. Student feedback has been very positive and raised their understanding and interest in career development and financial awareness in the current economic climate.
Workshops
Using the Blueprint has been a useful framework for careers to refine and develop their materials and workshop delivery to a wider audience. Using and adapting workbooks from the Australian framework has enabled the team to consolidate their information and incorporate competencies into the learning material. The aim was to enable students to identify their employability skills as part of their career development, by ticking off the competencies at the end of each workshop. Applying aspects of the Blueprint to employability workshops has enabled Student Services to update and create a more innovative approach to delivering personal development and career management skills. This has resulted in increased requests for employability and career related workshops across the curriculum, including Foundation degree students as a new audience. Participation in the Blueprint trial has introduced the team to a wealth of good practice, support and resources in the UK and internationally. Establishing links with Skills Development Scotland and Miles Morgan in Australia has led to the team researching the use of the Blueprint for employability in Canada, particularly Toronto. This has helped Student Services raise their profile and created a more collaborative approach to employability and enterprise across curriculum. As a team, student services have become more aware of the different support services they provide and how they are all instrumental in supporting student employability. Using a staff development day to introduce colleagues to the Blueprint framework provided a useful mapping exercise from which to measure their level of employability support.
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To develop the existing CLIAG programme, Bicton College, Devon Summary

Bicton College is the specialist land based college in Devon. The levels of courses run from PreEntry Level up to Foundation degree level so there a wide range of students on the campus at any one time. As the new Careers & Progression Adviser post only commenced in October 2010 and the previous post holder left some 7 months earlier there has been quite a gap in (CLIAG) provision. The Blueprint Trial provided a perfect opportunity to review and develop the existing CLIAG programme at the college. The college put in place a cross college IAG forum to improve the delivery of CLIAG and improve outcomes for learners; identified suitable trial courses and piloted some Blueprint activities. The underlying principle of being involved in the pilot was that competence in career planning should be a fundamental part of the college development plan. The college found the Australian resources far easier to identify with; the language only needed some small adaptation and there seemed to be far more workbooks and activities that could easily translate in to schemes of work and materials that teaching staff could use across the college. The lessons focused on Area C of the Blueprint framework at (Level 3) - To understand, engage in and manage the career building process and take charge of this process.
Impact
The college found the evaluations from the facilitators were positive and their comments regarding more use of diagrammatical and visual aids were well founded. They felt the tutorial lesson worked well and it highlighted a need for some students to examine their work experiences and also to start planning their future choices. The student evaluation proforma was completed by a small sample of students and some useful conclusions could be made including a need to develop input on gender stereotyping and labour market information. The college also noted that more time for consultation would have been helpful and allowed the trial to be tested more thoroughly with a wider range of students across the college. However, the Blueprint has been a really helpful driver to implementing change within the CLIAG programme. All of the objectives set within the trial needed to be addressed by the college, and the Blueprint provided a framework to be able to improve processes and outcomes. Despite the short timescale it has been an invaluable tool to help move things forward.
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Developing an all age service, Suffolk TAP Summary

The Adult Skills division of Suffolk Chamber of Commerce was originally established in 1990 as Suffolk TAP, a training information service. The service has evolved and expanded over the years and now provides an extensive information and advice service on skills and training. The team undertakes regular skills related research; the most recent project highlighted the need for a coherent advice service for young people. As part of the Blueprint pilot, the team worked with adults at different ages, with different levels of qualification and from different economic backgrounds. The aim was to put into place a career development framework that could be used with all age groups. The organisation envisaged that it would be able to assist individuals at whatever age to create a future career plan. A generic careers development questionnaire was designed to be used by all customers including colleagues and younger learners. The project started with a group of customers who were unemployed and aged over fifty. The team has approached the Blueprint within the context of the proposed new all age careers service and the need to explore approaches to careers planning at all stages of life.
Impact
The over fifty project had already been embarked upon but the Blueprint added depth to the project. It enabled the team to look in greater depth at individual situations and provided a framework to explore issues with customers. In a number of cases it demonstrated that individuals were more ready to embark on the process than had been anticipated. It has offered some customers a framework they value and has offered all participants the opportunity to take stock. One customer had been made redundant and also had severe health issues. He was referred by the jobcentre; he felt quite threatened and that he was being pressured to find employment. He undertook the careers assessment and felt that it gave him an opportunity to start to take some control: to identify what he wanted and to work out what was possible for him. It was a first small step for him. The advisers were all very slow to implement the Blueprint with customers, particularly with the group who were over fifty and unemployed: whom it was thought would be resistant. They assumed that the unemployed, over fifty customers would be focussed on the immediate need to find employment and would not understand or have sympathy with the aims of the Blueprint. One impact of the using the Blueprint has been in challenging assumptions about customers and this should have a positive long term effect on the service. Suffolk TAP were also pleased that they have accessed funding to expand on their initial pilot and work with a more diverse group. The Blueprint also fits well into the research aspects of the teams work and will help to build up a valuable body of information about individuals at different ages that can inform future work and feed into local initiatives.
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Aim E: Review an existing comprehensive delivery system

Reviewing an existing comprehensive delivery programme is a challenging undertaking. This following case study is interesting as the University already had a successful embedded approach to CLIAG in place but they were interested in comparing their work with the Blueprint and identifying the differences and opportunities for further development.
Reviewing Soaring to Success: a curriculum enhancement model for personalised student development, The University of Bedfordshire Summary
The University of Bedfordshire (UoB) was formed in 2006 from the merger of the University of Luton with the Bedford campus of De Montfort University. UoB recruits a culturally and educationally diverse range of students from within and outside the UK. UoB has addressed the delivery of Career Development Learning (CDL) in various ways over the past 20 years. Their SOAR approach focuses on engaging all students in a structured and supported process. It is based on the assumption that Self engaged with Opportunity leads to realistic Aspirations and effective Results, facilitated by active-reflective group learning, context and person-specific information, guidance and support. SOAR primarily evolved through empirical evidence gleaned from the experience of designing, delivering and evaluating career-related modules, refined continuously with feedback from students, teaching teams and external examiners. It was also inspired by the Blueprint work as published at the time of researching and accordingly the model updates and reframes career as lifelong and life-wide learning in line with the Blueprint work done in Canada and Australia. A new online resource for students at UoB MySuccess has more recently been developed by the Careers Service to support the delivery of the employability strategy and is based on the SOAR model. Given the existing alignment between SOAR and the Blueprint, it was considered useful in this trial to explore the extent to which the SOAR approaches and tools transform the rhetoric of the Blueprint into the reality of institutional practice. The intention was to map the SOAR approach (Kumar, 2007) and MySuccess (the associated online resource) against the full Blueprint framework at Phase 4 (see page 8 for the matrix) chosen as the most suitable level for HE students. The trial was planned as a desk exercise: to identify and list against each of the Blueprint competencies those chapters, exercises and figures in the book that interpret and deliver the requisite outcomes for student engagement and development. In a similar way, the Blueprint would be used to audit MySuccess.
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The questions with which the university team approached this exercise were: 1. To what extent can SOAR and MySuccess deliver the Blueprint competencies in practice? 2. How is the SOAR language and structure different or similar to the Blueprint framework? 3. What are the implications for developing a Blueprint fit for purpose in the UK? Tutor guidelines for the effective use of MySuccess also needed to be written, and it was envisaged that the trial would help to express these guidelines in relation to the Blueprint learning outcomes, wherever appropriate. In addition the Director of Campus Luton was involved more indirectly in the trial as he was aware of the Blueprint and perceived its connections with SOAR, which he was keen to use in contexts outside UoB for example to inform and underpin in-service training at Denbigh High School, a local feeder school for UoB. He offered to evaluate SOAR in these contexts.
Impact
The Blueprint trial was implemented largely as a desk exercise and, as envisaged, has had limited institutional impact because it was considered inadvisable to introduce yet another framework when the University has already adopted SOAR and staff are currently implementing it in various ways. It has helped careers advisers to see that the Blueprint competencies are in effect mediated and available for delivery right across UoB through SOAR, its associated online resource MySuccess and the Tutor Guidelines written for academic staff. The close alignment between the learning outcomes from each SOARing approach and activity and the Blueprint competencies can help to further endorse SOAR as a delivery mechanism for CLIAG as needed by students and graduates in our times.
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Aim F: Develop a comprehensive career development system

Organisations developing their CLIAG offering discover that when using the Blueprint to inform their approach that other areas of work are taken into consideration for example Equality and Diversity and Every Child Matters. Using the Blueprint as an assessment tool has shown that not all work has to be traditionally associated with CLIAG to meet the competencies.
Using the Blueprint to develop a new careers education/career learning programme as part of the economic wellbeing sessions as part of Lifelong Learning lessons, John Warner School Summary
The John Warner School is a larger than average, all ability, secondary school in South Hertfordshire. Students received careers education lessons as part of the Lifelong Learning programme which covered a series of units on Economic Wellbeing (including careers), PSHE, Citizenship and Fitness. All of these units are taught by the form tutor, whose subject specialism can be from any subject background. The focus for the Blueprint trial at John Warner has been to create an economic wellbeing scheme of work using the Blueprint as a guide for Years 7-11 and to develop pupil understanding, particularly in Year 9 and 11, of how to access careers information and the importance of seeing careers education as a lifelong process. The teaching of careers education, citizenship and PSHE was reviewed in the summer of 2010 to look at how to best adapt and promote the teaching of lifelong skills as proposed in the Blueprint but also required in PSHE and citizenship lessons. The decision was taken to change the name of the subject from PSHE to Lifelong Learning. The second step was to ensure that each year group had a main topic to focus on in the year as well as smaller modules of the other subjects. Year 7 would follow the UK Resilience Programme2 , Year 8 would follow a condensed version of Coveys 7 Habits of Effective Teenagers programme3, Year 9 would focus on Economic Wellbeing and Years 10 and 11 would focus on GCSE Citizenship. Whilst not all of these directly focus on careers the skills developed within these subjects also enable a wider implementation of the Blueprint. For example, the Year 9 scheme of work provided the opportunity to try to cover many aspects of the Blueprints three main aims, as it was delivered over 10 weeks. The scheme of work enabled pupils to explore their own skills and their dreams for the future and included the use of plays which were also performed for parents. The first taught lesson encouraged pupils to reflect on their current progress and dream for the future, and the final lesson tied together all the skills they had learned. The course enabled them to think about what skills they need for the future and how each option choice could help them to achieve this.
The UK Resilience Programme (UKRP) aims to improve childrens psychological well-being by building resilience and promoting accurate thinking.
2 3
Based on the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey
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As a result of the course, pupils expressed concerns about the opportunities that would be available to them in the future as they were aware of rising unemployment and the increases in university fees. For a number of pupils this caused them to become concerned about their future. The scheme of work also encouraged pupils to see subjects as an opportunity to gain skills that an employer will want them to have rather than choosing the same subjects as their friends or because they like the teacher.
Impact
The impact of the Blueprint in Years 8 and 11 was difficult to assess. The scheme of work that pupils followed in these years was too brief to have a measurable impact. The school think it would be worthwhile to investigate in 2011/2012 if the current Year 8 finds it easier than the current Year 9 in learning about work opportunities as they have already covered this area. The perceived impact on Year 11 pupils appeared to be a greater level of confidence in some pupils in knowing how to decide what they would like to do with their future; however, it was also noticeable at the pathways interviews that parents still had a very strong influence over their childs choices. Although they had more sessions in which to develop their skills, the impact of the Blueprint framework on Year 9 was also hard to measure. The views, however, of 75 Year 9 pupils were assessed through a questionnaire at the end of the course. The perceived impact on Year 9 is that they were better equipped to know how to make decisions about their future and how subject choices can have an impact on their employability; however, as Year 9 pupils were in the process of making these choices, the extent of this impact was still unclear. The results suggested that the quality of teaching of the topics set within the scheme of work also varied. Pupils in the higher sets also showed more confidence in themselves than those in the lowest set. The areas that pupils felt most confident in were in personal management. The areas where pupils felt weakest were connected to learning and work exploration. In particular, pupils expressed concerns about knowing about different types of qualifications, the local labour market and how to adapt and use a backup plan if things change. The impact of the Blueprint trial on the school as a whole was that it has highlighted the need for staff development and training in teaching topics like careers education. Many teachers at the school were in their first teaching school and the majority of the teaching staff were under the age of 35 and varied in their understanding of CLIAG and the importance of all the Blueprint competencies. One Year 9 form tutor commented that they thought that careers education was not a meaty enough topic for 10 lessons. This suggested that some staff still perceived careers education as something they are made to teach rather than a subject that they want to teach and explore with their class. It also suggested that some teaching staff do not feel confident that they have the skills or life knowledge themselves to be able to effectively teach this area of the curriculum.
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Further education learner needs assessment & Blueprint tutorial programme South Essex College of Further & Higher Education
It was vital to develop a CEG programme that could potentially work across the different ages and levels at the college
Summary
South Essex College of Further & Higher Education is the largest college in the South Essex area with 20,000 students. The largest cohort of full-time learners are in the 14-19 age bracket with over 7000 young people participating in programmes ranging from traditional A Levels to vocational programmes from Entry Level to Level 3. The Blueprint appealed to the college due to the diverse range of learners that they have. The Careers & Employability team were aware that learners come from a range of backgrounds and have had different experiences of careers education during their schooling and life. The team were very aware that not all needs were being met especially those on courses below Level 3 and it was agreed that the Blueprint trial would allow for the development of a new all age/level careers programme, which would also complement the launch of the all-age careers service in 2012. The team wanted this new programme to reflect not only the Blueprint Career Competencies but also the needs of the learners. Working with the Careers Advisers, the Careers and Employability Manager developed a questionnaire to assess the FE learners perceptions of their career management skills. This was seen as a key part of the trial as it allowed the team to acquire an understanding of the learner cohort and develop a scheme of work that will support them in achieving sustainable career self-management. The questionnaire was developed using the Australian Blueprint resource Career Development Needs Assessment Survey. The decision was taken, after feedback, to develop a statement style questionnaire and 22 questions were written that asked learners to rate themselves according to the statement. This questionnaire was also used as an opportunity to collect information on equality and diversity. The questionnaire was sent live via the colleges intranet and was included as part of the tutorial scheme for that week. To ensure there was a spread of learners from different areas and levels a few select tutors were emailed and encouraged to get their tutor groups to complete the questionnaire. This resulted in over 200 responses to the survey. 65% of the respondents were currently studying a Level 3 programme.
Impact
The Blueprint framework was used as an assessment tool during CLIAG and tutorials, so that current provision could be measured. This has been very successful in allowing the team to see how they currently meet the framework. It also allowed for other areas of work to be taken into consideration for example equality and diversity and Every Child Matters. Using the Blueprint as an assessment tool has shown that not all work has to be CLIAG related to meet the competencies. Completing a questionnaire with a selection of learners has shown the team that every individual looks at their career management skills and development differently and this needs to be taken into consideration when working with clients. The questionnaire also showed
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the team how important self-assessment is in using the Blueprint with learners and they believe that without self-assessment, learners cannot be aware of their own development. This has resulted in a self-assessment questionnaire also being developed for one to one guidance. These results indicate that more work needs to be undertaken with learners on the nature of work and the expectations of employers. Learners also need more support accessing careers IAG (in all forms). This supports the development of CLIAG group works to bring all learners to the same level and introduce new tools/skills for managing a career lifelong as well as more assistance in linking their skills to their future employment/learning. The Blueprint trial has enabled the team to look closely at CLIAG and tutorial content and see the areas for improvement more clearly. The team will be looking to use the Blueprint as a mapping tool for all new and existing group work. Overall it is felt that the Blueprint trial has been a success and outlined areas for future improvement the team feel comfortable and passionate about taking forward to make changes to the service. Throughout the trial the long-term use of the Blueprint within our work has been considered. The ethos of the Blueprint also fits well with the teams development around online resources and independent career management skills. The Blueprint will be consistently used as a mapping tool to check content of sessions against competencies. This can also be taken across areas including into the curriculum due to the understanding that the learning does not have to be specifically CLIAG to meet the Blueprint competencies
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Aim G: Play a supporting role to those directly involved with career development programming
The final objective was explored by the team from Lincolnshire County Council who were an early pioneer of the Blueprint. Their trial experience highlighted an important learning point that one should not assume that materials produced in other countries could be used in England without adaptation and how there are benefits from piloting any materials in advance.
Using the Blueprint Career Framework to support online professional development, Lincolnshire County Council school improvement service (CfBT) Summary
Over the past five years Lincolnshires Careers Education Information Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) team has developed an online resource called The Guidance Network (www. guidancenetwork.info). Part of its function is to support the professional development of school staff involved in the delivery of careers education and guidance and enhance their capacity to deliver across a rural county and support good practice. The aim of the trial was to develop the website so it covered all the competencies that make up the Blueprint and to test out the Australian and Canadian Blueprint lesson plans with young people. Positive feedback would lead to an increase of resources available to learner providers. The contents of the website were mapped against all the competencies and phases of the Blueprint framework and showed that The Guidance Network covered thirty seven out of the frameworks forty four areas. The Australian and Canadian websites were then reviewed in order to find resources that could fill these outstanding seven areas. Once suitable resources were found they were scrutinised for language and subject matter to ensure they were appropriate for use in English schools. From the process they discovered that the resources on the Canadian website were all over five years old. The Australian websites resources were more up to date and so these were chosen to trial. However none of the resources came with information on how to deliver them and they lacked differentiation for delivery to different age and ability groups. Two non-selective comprehensive schools were then identified to trial the resources. Both schools had an understanding of the Blueprint as they had participated in an exchange visit with organisations in Alberta, Canada where the Blueprint approach is embedded.
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Impact
Progress of the project was monitored via staff, learner and other stakeholder reviews and questionnaires, and resulted in positive and constructive feedback. The research was effective in allowing them to see the Blueprint complements current CEIAG work and how they can use The Guidance Network website to deliver the Blueprint competencies. As a result the website has been further developed and improved. Its subject areas have been re-named, resources relocated and the navigation through the site made easier for visitors. The pilot also reassured the team that the contents of the website were relevant and that their resources compare favourably to those of Australia and Canada. Knowledge of the Blueprint was also shared with other schools, colleges and learning providers who attended a conference. This represented new learning as it was the first time they had been informed about the Blueprint and they had the opportunity to apply the framework to their organisation. Young people at one school have had the opportunity to experience an Australian devised lesson on employability skills and their feedback means the team will be able to develop their own equivalent resources which will better meet the needs of young people in Lincolnshire. Staff at the schools involved will be able to develop the use of the Blueprint in their programmes and following the mapping exercise the team will be able to provide resources for the schools that link to the Blueprint.
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Trial findings- evidence of impact

Feedback from the Trial Sites
In summary, the Blueprint has been used in a variety of ways at trial sites, the most frequent of which were for: assessing learners career competences; developing materials based on the Blueprint; designing career learning activities based on the Blueprint; and using the Blueprint concepts / competences in 1 to 1 work with learners (for example interviews, reviews etc).
A post trial survey of the participant organisations on the impact and effectiveness of the Blueprint yielded the following feedback and results:
Overall
Where there has been sufficient time for staff to develop a view, the Blueprint has, in all cases, been fairly or very successfully used in the activities in which it has been trialled. It has been particularly successful at the following:
introducing new ideas / concepts into careers work; and helping to identify priorities in careers work. The responses indicate that for some trial sites it may be too early for staff to make a judgement as to whether the Blueprint is helping learners understand how competent they are at career planning or enabling learners to take greater responsibility for their career development. For some the framework was a useful tool or starting point to: understand the concept of career and personal skills development; support the design and content of the CLIAG programme; or give some research based ideas about the importance of career development and planning in the introduction to career planning. It gave us a different, objective, externally defined frame of reference against which to check what we are implementing and developing currently across the whole university.
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It provided a different way of looking at what we do and helped to refresh what we do and deliver in a slightly different way which will hopefully benefit the students. We used the Blueprint more as a research model but the college is planning to continue with this to see what the impact would be. It has really helped us identify that the competency Area A that we initially selected is widely covered so for the purposes of the college we would need to look deeper into a competency area that is not covered and research again. More specifically, the Blueprint has helped staff to: review the group tutorial programme; identify some gaps and the implications of not including these Blueprint outcomes in curricula; undertake very useful mapping exercises on CLIAG and tutorials, which has allowed staff to see what would work in their environment, and how tutors would like to be supported in this area of their work. Mapped against an existing product the Blueprint has helped identify where competencies were being covered & not covered; re-organise the layout of a web site so that it is mapped to the Blueprint; introduce greater coherence into their CLIAG programme, such as by talking to each curriculum area, understanding the competencies they deliver in the class room to avoid duplication or to rethink another competency; understand better what external providers offer; plan new schemes of work or redevelop existing ones for careers education; reflect on their use of language and the need to express tutor guidelines as learning outcomes; help learners self-assess against the framework and take greater responsibility for their career development; prepare training sessions on getting people to consider planning for future careers & career development; develop a one to one guidance tool based on a questionnaire; design a career development questionnaire to assess learners career competencies; and identify gaps in the resources produced and add new topics.
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Less anticipated outcomes include: establishing an IAG forum so that there is a cross college approach to CLIAG; getting a slot on the college staff development programme; and in the longer term raising the profile of CLIAG within the college. Staff have learnt: that working with a range of 16-year-old students with varying ability and commitment showed that the ideas on decision making and personal accountability for performance and direction are very under-developed; that the self- assessment process was crucial for learners to understand their current knowledge and gain a greater understanding of what they needed to do to take responsibility for their own career development; that there is potential for the Blueprint to further prompt and encourage staff to include career learning objectives / outcomes in their curricula; how to use the framework in conjunction with other skills/knowledge exploration tools; that the framework can complement current CLIAG work; and that when explained to schools, colleges and training providers there seemed to be general support for the framework. As a result of the work: learners have been helped understand their competences in regards to their career; use of competency tables has enabled learners to think about this area of personal development; and students have been introduced to possible areas for development. There has been an impact on advisers and on their approach to the work. The approach has been re-evaluated as well as assumptions about customers. This should have a positive long term effect on the service. The Blueprint also fits well into the research aspects of the teams work and will help to build up a valuable body of information about individuals at different ages that can inform future work and feed into local initiatives.
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In conclusion, there was evidence of impact of the Blueprint at a number of levels. 1. Reach: In terms of reach the Blueprint was used with a wide range of learners, ranging from secondary school pupils to adult learners in the 50 plus age group. It was used with those in full time education, work based learning; those returning to work and people who were long term unemployed. The trials covered a broad range of learners from a variety of economic and social backgrounds and personal circumstances, and across the country from the North East to the South West. The trial numbers varied from small groups working on highly individualised programmes to large curriculum based programmes encompassing a much larger number of learners. 2. Reaction: As a tool to review and enhance existing programmes and to provide a basis for the development of new CLIAG courses and curriculum, the Blueprint appears to have a great deal of support. The fact that it can take account of other development activities already taking place in organisations for example. Every Child Matters, SEAL4, UK Resilience and other approaches was highlighted as a positive aspect of the framework. In a number of trials, the approach also appeared to capture the attention of senior management and raise the profile of CLIAG provision and the staff that deliver it. There was also evidence of less satisfaction and this came mostly from learners and staff who were unfamiliar with the approach and in particular the language. Some learners, however, were able to apply elements of the framework to their own experiences and development even if they did not fully understand the concepts and the detail of the language. Many organisations developed learner friendly versions of the framework and available tools for example Sandwell college successfully involved learners in the development of initial assessment questionnaires. There was evidence that some tutorial/teaching staff also needed convincing of the benefits of the CLIAG, particularly with young school aged learners, in addition to further familiarity with the Blueprint approach. Overall it is felt that the Blueprint Trial has been a success and outlined areas for future improvement which the Team feel comfortable and passionate about taking forward to make changes to the service (South Essex College) The Blueprint also offers an opportunity to look at how learning can contribute to a quality of life not only achievable in a work place. Therefore, by identifying skills gained from the past and identifying new ones an unemployed person can look at opportunities in placements or in volunteering to keep up their skills and gain new ones... (Somerset Skills & Learning) 3. Learning: Evidence of learners discovering things about themselves as well as organisations seeking to find out the effectiveness of their resources, their staff and existing programmes was also apparent.
SEAL is a comprehensive, whole-school approach to promoting the social and emotional skills that underpin effective learning, positive behaviour, regular attendance, staff effectiveness and the emotional health and well-being of all who learn and work in schools.
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The product WexAbility after mapping it against Blueprint appears even stronger as a tool to support career learning (St Joan of Arc School) Helped me to identify things that I need to confront, however some of the wording was confusing (Learner in Higher Education at UWE) We need to send our students away from Esher College with the competencies needed to make decisions in the next stage of their lives and these ideas from the Blueprint will give staff clear outcomes and a standard to help our students achieve (Esher College) The key learning points from this experience are that SRC are now much more aware of the competencies that are delivered across each curriculum area throughout the college and as such can make an easier decision from the list of competencies which ones could be taken forward to delivery. (Stockton Riverside College) Participation in the Blueprint trial has introduced the team to a wealth of good practice, support and resources both in the UK and internationally. Establishing links with Skills Development Scotland, Miles Morgan in Australia has led to Careers researching use of the Blueprint for employability in Canada, particularly Toronto. (North Hertfordshire College) All of the trial organisations had articulated their intentions to build on their learning and insights and this was reflected in their plans for next steps. The Integrated Youth Service provision is exploring how the Blueprint framework can be used across all of its work and also how it would fit into an all-age guidance framework. The school has requested that further collaborative work be done to support the development for use in school. The college will be reviewing its personal guidance programme and incorporating the full range of Blueprint competencies. (Franklin Sixth Form College) 4. Change: At an individual level there were stories of individuals doing things differently for example making the first move towards employability, maintaining full attendance on a programme etc. The impact of running these sessions was increased self-confidence by all attendees. One gentleman who attended said that he had feared these sessions when he was told he should do them, but had really enjoyed them, and realised that he had skills and competencies that employers would want. Before finishing the sessions, he was told about a potential job vacancy as a gardener, which the sessions had helped him identify that as a potential career that he would like. With the increased confidence, and knowledge about how to present himself and creating the right impression, he secured the position and started work shortly after the course finished. (NTN-Training)
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The organisations in the trial had also made changes as a result of their involvement in the Blueprint trials for example NTN- Training plan to use their Blueprint approach directly with learners in one to ones, and will continue to offer the workshops as a package. 5. Impact on organisations: Throughout all the trials there was evidence of impact on individual learners and the staff delivering CLIAG. In terms of measuring impact, a change at an organisational level is often harder to identify or substantiate; however, there were some early signs of the Blueprint framework impacting on strategy and activity at a senior level, even at such early stage of implementation. For example, forging greater partnerships between Franklin College and an integrated youth service; senior manager involvement in some of the trials and establishing an IAG forum at Bicton College, so that there was a cross college approach to CLIAG. Some reported that there was greater coherence in planning career provision / identifying priorities and allocating resources which is certainly an impact at departmental level, if not wider. Building upon practice within the Blueprint project, City of Wolverhampton College, has seen the formation of an Opportunities Adviser post to assist with screening learners entering foundation learning programmes to ensure their suitability with regard to their aspirations.
...the Blueprint has been a really helpful driver to implementing change within the CLIAG programme. All of the objectives set within the trial needed to be addressed by the college, and the Blueprint provided a framework to be able to improve processes and outcomes. Despite the short timescale it has been an invaluable tool to help move things forward. (Bicton College) Utilising the Blueprint has been a good reason to look at and evaluate unionlearns resources, something which would be good to carry out more often, and has proven to be a worthwhile exercise. (unionlearn)
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Emerging Themes for the Blueprint Framework

Relevance and insights
In addition to the main findings of the trials there were observations that: In some cases, the continuous professional development (CPD) of staff was seen to be enabled by the Blueprint framework and contributed to the confidence in staff in developing resources for learners and building a case for CLIAG, including an increased impetus to undertake a broader remit and further work in the CLIAG area; A number of trial sites used the framework to tackle the employability requirements of their learners; One of the main gaps identified by organisations using the framework to review their programmes and resources was the lack of emphasis in current provision for challenging stereotypes in work and life. This was clearly an area where more work could be undertaken to provide high quality resources to engage learners in this area of discussion; and Some of the key areas covered by organisations who chose to concentrate on one competency or competency area of the Blueprint were decision-making and build and maintain a positive self-image, which is related self-esteem and self-confidence. Both competency areas were viewed as important for learners to develop and sustain in the current economic climate and would be worthy of emphasis in future frameworks.
The value in having a comprehensive and well-researched framework to shape CLIAG provision
Whether used as a holistic approach or as a guide to the development of one particular competency area, the Blueprint appeared to equip staff with a framework to create robust and credible CLIAG approaches to meet learner needs. Often basing their designs on an initial staff assessment or learner self-assessment, the stages and indicators of the Blueprint structure helped CLIAG staff to tailor the interventions to the right level for the learner. NTN used the stages of the Blueprint to develop their learners in progressing in the Competency A. Using the stages as building blocks for the next level. Somerset Skills and Learning saw the congruence between what they were trying to achieve with their highly tailored courses and the Blueprint competencies on building and maintaining self esteem, using the Blueprint to fine tune and enhance their offering. More strategically, there was evidence that the academic research and thinking behind the Blueprint was an influential factor in raising the profile of CLIAG in some of the organisations in the trial.
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The value of the framework for learners.

The trial sites were specifically requested to gather evidence on the applicability of the Blueprint language in the currently available versions and associated resources. Unsurprisingly, as with earlier trials, the feedback from the trials was that the language was not easy for learners to understand; however, despite some difficulties with the language, some learners reported the value of having an overall framework with which to work with. The Blueprint covers what you would want from a career, how hard you are prepared to work or study for it, how much it will cost to train or study, your work values and the probability that you will not have job for life and that there may be several career changes due to redundancy. I wish I had received this when I was at school (Learner comment) The majority of the trial sites translated the language of the current Blueprint frameworks for learners to aid understanding, putting the resources into their own words, and the requirement to do this in any future versions of the Blueprint was a key message for LSIS. Another issue was timing and creating the most conducive climate for self-reflection and evaluation. Chesterfield College noted that, This amount of soul searching is probably best done when students have been on programme for a while and have thoroughly bonded as a group. Many of the young people were in an entirely new environment at the start of the trial. And this salient advice could be applied to any individuals contemplating their competencies and skills in this area.
Introducing the framework at an earlier age

There was some anecdotal evidence reported by the trial sites that, in their view, the Blueprint and its activities needed to be embedded and introduced to learners much earlier in the school curriculum. In some cases, the view was that it was almost too late to challenge effectively some of the long held beliefs or enhance the understanding of some learners for example when choosing courses at University; however, the introduction of the framework earlier and at least by Year 8 would benefit learners in the important decisions they make when choosing options for further study and routes for progression. However, they felt that it was as useful and would be as beneficial with younger learners. To really embed the concept it may be that this is introduced to learners as young as 5 years of age. The Blueprint would offer a tool to teachers that would enable them to develop the softer skills of children, instead of being predominantly literacy and numeracy focussed. Children often demonstrate abilities in things like Team Leading and Empathy, but are not praised on these social skills. The Blueprint could offer this. (NTN-Training)
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The key lesson learned from the Year 11 scheme of work is that Year 11 is too late to adapt the attitudes of pupils towards careers education. To successfully embed careers education as a lifelong skill it is important that they have a secure a basic understanding of these skills by the end of Key Stage 3 (Year 9) (John Warner school)
What should a Blueprint for England look like?

Content
The de-briefing workshops held after the trial highlighted a number of areas which may be useful to include. There was a strong feeling that the inclusion of any area should avoid being linked to any government policy to ensure that it would not be lost as policies change over time. It was, however, noted that the Blueprint should reflect the current economic pressures and climate and there should be a strong emphasis on employability. Areas such as entrepreneurship, literacy and numeracy were all identified as being important. There were no requests or arguments for removing any of the original eleven competencies, as indeed one respondent wrote: The competencies that are needed for individuals to progress and be empowered to take charge of their own future are well described (Franklin College). Suffolk TAP pointed out that for the Blueprint to gain wide acceptance that impact measures would be needed and these are likely to differ for different client groups. Assessment is likely to be important for engaging learners in schools and colleges, whereas a kite mark or quality standard is likely to be more attractive to businesses. It was also noted that: A benefit of the current Blueprint structure is that its indicators can be open to interpretation. This can allow many different organisations with a range of foci to use the framework, making it a framework that can be used to enhance collaborative approaches between different organisations. (Lincolnshire County Council).
Structure & Language

This group found the language of the Blueprint difficult and they needed support to access it. However, once supported, they found it a very useful focus for them to consider work options and associated training available to them. Career gumption and career resilience were terms that had a lot of meaning for staff and learners and hit an immediate chord of recognition of the strength and persistence that successful job seekers will need to demonstrate in times of economic hardship. (Wolverhampton College).
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In the post trial survey, 12 (67%) of respondents indicated that the structure of the Blueprint needed to be changed to be used in England. Suggested improvements included: A third of respondents made reference to the complexity of the framework and the need to simplify this; Several also mentioned the need to reduce the age related stages, phases or levels from 4 to 3, although it was noted that the levels of competency 1-4 were helpful to enable assessment as well as development; Two respondents mentioned that the framework is too linear and does not reflect the acquisition of competencies in real life for example University of Bedfordshire have adopted a process that is more cyclical. Although they appreciated the benefits of having a system with different stages and levels; and Flexibility is important to ensure that it can be adapted to suit different contexts. The majority, (83%) of respondents thought that the language of the Blueprint needed to be changed. Trial participants were free to use the Australian or Canadian version of the Blueprint and there were reported language issues with both, although the resources from Australia were reported to be easier to use. A third of respondents indicated that the Blueprint language needs to be simplified and be in plain English for example one college pointed out that the nuances of the verbs, i.e. build, develop and improve were not consistent across the four levels; Half of the respondents reported that the Blueprint needed to be written in a language that was clear and relevant for users and learners. One suggested that there needs to be two versions, using different levels of language, to ensure that there is a version to which professionals could relate as well as a more basic one, so that those with basic abilities are not excluded. Staff reported using more simplified language when working with their learners; Comments suggest that the language in the Blueprint prevented engagement for some learners; A couple of respondents mentioned that the language needed to be anglicised: Manual Arts Subjects and TAFE (the Australian equivalent to FE colleges) were pointed out as terms not used in England. Some values such as impartiality may need to be made more explicit. Another mentioned the need to reduce the volume of career terminology; A couple mentioned the need for SMARTer outcomes and wording which enables measurement of progress; and There was a clear preference for employability skills, building self-reliance, financial planning and entrepreneurship to be included in the framework.
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Other aspects to take into consideration were the need to ensure that the version for England would be appropriate for adults as well as younger learners. Franklin College added another perspective to this requirement: The connectivity of parents with the language and the possibility of this feeding into an all age guidance framework would enable significant synergy in work with all parties in guidance processes. The language also needs to take into account age, literacy levels and cultural differences (unionlearn)
The requirement for a simpler and more user-friendly framework and resources
In the analysis of the trial feedback it became clear that although some sites used the competency indicators for content in designing their programmes and activities, and took account of the stages in targeting the right level of activity for learners, very few used the language and structure of the development process in their activities, preferring to work from the top line of information contained in the framework. Many of the sites preferred the Australian version of the framework in preference to the Canadian version, although the sites used and were appreciative of the related resources available from both sites. I found the Australian offer much more user friendly the website was easy to navigate and eyecatchingly simple; On first sight I liked the work books they supplied (free of charge), however delving a little more deeply into these, they would have to be completely re-vamped for the UK market. (Richard Huish College)
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Blueprint: Lessons for the sector

This report incorporates the feedback from 19 trials across a range of learner settings. Building on the outcomes of this study, a survey of trial participants and feedback from practitioner workshops organised by LSIS early in 2011, considerable interest was expressed in developing a version of Blueprint for use in the English context and possibly wider. From the trial sites, there was clear support for the work at national level to include the following: developing and disseminating career activities based on the Blueprint; disseminating information on ways in which the Blueprint can be used effectively; producing a more simple version of the Blueprint; producing a questionnaire which learners can use to assess their career competence; offering staff training on how to use the Blueprint; A website / discussion forum dedicated to the English Blueprint; and an award for those completing the Blueprint. With this in mind, the following recommended next steps have been drawn up for different stakeholders:
Next Steps
Learning providers
using this collection of case studies to get started, assimilate aspects of Blueprint into your careers provision to strengthen the benefits for learners; consider trying out and giving feedback on a new version of the Blueprint for England; and investigate ways of implementing the Blueprint in partnership settings and particularly with employers; learners with learning difficulties and schools.
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Career education and guidance professional community

Developing the Blueprint, consulting with trial sites before consulting more widely and consider how to develop more support for learning providers to introduce the Blueprint into their provision, including developing a concise implementation guide for England and exploring new technology options. Commission and carry out longer-term trials and research to investigate how the Blueprint can be used most effectively to strengthen learners career development. Develop new resources and materials for delivering employability skills and challenging stereotypes with learners. Developing a self-audit tool for learners based on the Blueprint. Explore the potential for the further development of the Blueprint in the UK and its use across all age groups with relevant government departments. Consider accreditation of the Blueprint as an approach to maximising benefits to learners. Identify existing courses, qualifications and programmes that deliver the whole or part of the Blueprint.
Government
Commissioning the ongoing development of a Blueprint for England and benchmarking the new approach with other national settings, including Scotland. Explore the use of the Blueprint with employers as a way of developing career management skills and competencies in the workplace. Consider the use of the approach with people who are unemployed as part of a getting back into work/training/voluntary work process. A clear mapping process to any new or emerging statutory guidance/relevant frameworks/ awards would need to take place to encourage learning providers to incorporate the Blueprint along with some clear positioning about the role of the Blueprint.
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Conclusions
In summary, the trials of the Blueprint appeared to be highly successful and informative. In previous work on the Blueprint LSIS recommended that learning providers consider assimilating aspects of the Blueprint into their careers provision. The majority of trial sites had achieved this, reporting some clear benefits and planning to do more with the Blueprint as a result of undertaking the trial. As also observed in the first trial project, the trial sites enthusiasm to follow up the work on the Blueprint was one of the most positive outcomes of the trial. The extra time in this trial has given rise to a broadening out of the impact of the Blueprint and in some individuals, increased their professional motivation. In many cases the Blueprint was used by the trial sites to support the ever-important need for learners to develop employability skills in an increasingly tight labour market and hone their decision-making skills where the implications for poorly researched choices are increasingly risky and mistakes expensive in terms of time and money. In terms of practical issues, the feedback from the trial sites and from previous trials in other national settings was that to use the Blueprint more extensively in England. The framework language would benefit from being revised in terms of complexity and Anglicisation. Most notably, the competency indicators are not written to SMART criteria and may need to be more specific to measure learning outcomes. It was also noted that the language of the Blueprint may be too complex and inaccessible for some learners; however there were perceived benefits for keeping the indicators open to interpretation to enable a range of interventions and organisations to contribute to competency development. There was also strong support for retaining the original competencies but increasing the emphasis on employability. Although the trials were more generous in terms of time and resource than earlier trials undertaken by LSIS, the projects were still limited in what could be achieved within the four to sixth month timeframe; however, participants reported many advantages and benefits from using such a comprehensive and detailed approach to developing career competencies. Each trial site took a different aspect of the Blueprint and tailored the trials to their requirements and the needs of their own individual learners. There were some gaps in the coverage of competency areas, and types of learners and further trials are needed to look in more detail at the implementation of the Blueprint in all areas but especially in primary schools, with employers, care leavers and learners with learning difficulties. In conclusion, CLIAG is seen as a powerful driver of social mobility and a crucial factor in achieving government and sector policies and targets. Out of alignment with these efforts to achieve social mobility; re-engage young people with society and the current emphasis on happiness and well-being amongst the general population, are current challenges to the sector including cuts to enrichment funding which has affected tutorial programmes in some colleges; the demise of Connexions and the possibility of less well prepared students if schools abandon careers education and students have less access to impartial careers support.
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Current challenges to the sector including cuts to enrichment funding which has affected tutorial programmes in some colleges, the demise of Connexions and the possibility of less well prepared students if schools abandon careers education and students have less access to impartial careers support, are out of alignment with these efforts to achieve social mobility, re-engage young people with society and the current emphasis on happiness and wellbeing amongst the general population. There is a wide-ranging consensus on the need for high quality CLIAG to support effective learning, progression; lasting employment and fulfilment in life. Effective CLIAG, however, is not an entitlement, nor is it always fully embedded in education and workplace structures and processes or even perceived by individuals as a personal Priority. Therefore it is recognised that we need to build a career development culture in which individuals are helped to take responsibility for their own careers and learning at all ages through an imaginative range of resources, materials and services. This second trial of the Blueprint framework indicates a competency approach to developing career management skills could play a part in this vision, especially if it were more tailored to an anglicised context and was simpler in terms of its structure. A competency framework covering the same ground as the Blueprint could be a highly effective tool in developing career skills in learners of all ages.
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Further reading
Australian Blueprint for Career Development (ABCD) www.Blueprint.edu.au The Australian Blueprint for Career Development and the Appendices www.Blueprint.edu.au/resources/DL_Blueprint_Final.pdf?bcsi_ scan_8691BB3BC7BCD5AE=0&bcsi_scan_filename=DL_Blueprint_Final.pdf The professional development kit: Using the Blueprint with Young People www.Blueprint.edu.au/index.php/toolkit/using_the_Blueprint_in_schools/ Blueprint for Life (Canada) www.Blueprint4life.ca/Blueprint/home.cfm/lang/1
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Registered Office Friars House, Manor House Drive Coventry CV1 2TE t: 024 7662 7900 e: enquires@lsis.org.uk www.lsis.org.uk LSIS231
Learning and Skills Improvement Service 2011 Company number 06454450 Registered charity number 1123636 October 2011

The Blueprint For Careers - Evidence of Impact

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The Blueprint For Careers - Evidence of Impact

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Career learning for the 21st century:

The Blueprint for Careers - evidence of impact

Who is this report for?

Career Blueprint: An overview

A brief history of the Blueprint

The Blueprint Framework

Blueprint career competencies by area and phase1

This chart is taken from the Australian Blueprint

8. Make career enhancing decisions

10. Understand the changing nature of life and work roles

11. Understand, engage in and manage the career building process

Intended use of the Blueprint

The Blueprint for Careers Trials

The trial process

Limitations of the trial

The trial case studies - a summary of impact activity

North Hertfordshire College South Essex College, Southend. Chesterfield College

Bicton College Devon Nottinghamshire Training Network (NTN- Training)

Somerset Skills and Learning

Adult & Community Learning

St Joan of Arc School, Rickmansworth

John Warner School, Hoddesdon, near Bishop Stortford

The Blueprint Trials - evidence of impact

Analysing Decision Making Skills, Esher College Summary

Aim B: Review a career development product to determine the competencies it targets

Aim C: Review an existing specific program or curriculum

Short extract from the completed Stage 2 template

Aim D: Create a specific CLIAG programme

To develop the existing CLIAG programme, Bicton College, Devon Summary

Developing an all age service, Suffolk TAP Summary

Aim E: Review an existing comprehensive delivery system

Aim F: Develop a comprehensive career development system

Trial findings- evidence of impact

Emerging Themes for the Blueprint Framework

The value of the framework for learners.

Introducing the framework at an earlier age

What should a Blueprint for England look like?

Structure & Language

Blueprint: Lessons for the sector

Career education and guidance professional community

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