Blue collar counselling
A group of researchers won an EU-award for a project that moved vocational counselling into the workplaces. Peter Plant from the DPU is among the researchers who use vocational counselling as a means to bring life-long learning to everyone.
By Torben Clausen (toc@dpu.dk)
Educational researchers often refer to Matthew 25:29: 'For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away.' Harsh words, but no less true in the current labour market, where lifelong learning and competence development – despite being crucial for preserving your job – is only rarely awarded to those with little or no formal education or those with poorly paid jobs.
The problem is, partly, that vocational counselling is not aimed directly at people with little formal training who already have a job, but this group of people definitely need counselling in order to keep their jobs in the long run, according to Pamela Clayton from the University of Glasgow. She was the leader of a project aimed to target vocational counselling to the poorly educated and to people with low-wage jobs. This past December, the project was awarded the EU's prestigious Leonardo Award in recognition of the project's contribution to the development of European member states' counselling policy.
Pamela Clayton uses an acquaintance to explain her point: He held a low-paid job, but wanted something else. He had no idea how to go about this. "I asked him whether he had thought about vocational guidance, and he replied: 'What's that?'", Pamela Clayton says. When he then tried to find some vocational counselling, he found that there was only one counselling office in the whole city of Birmingham. Furthermore, the office was in the opposite end of the city from his job, and it was only open when he was supposed to be at work. He ended up travelling 500 kilometres, all the way to Glasgow, for counselling by another of Pamela Clayton's acquaintances.
Lifelong learning has been high on the political agenda for people with only primary or secondary education because of the globalisation and the outsourcing that is taking place all over the developed world. Might we not have expected that public vocational counsellors would also have helped low-wage workers maintain and improve their competencies?
"Then you would be disappointed," Pamela Clayton answers unapologetically. "When we began our project, unemployment was high, so focus was on the unemployed. Also, there has been a longstanding focus on youth, and most guidance is still aimed at young people. It's a question of prioritising, and nobody saw the problem," explains Pamela Clayton. The researchers in the project were only able to identify counselling aimed at low-wage workers in half the participating countries – in the other half, there was nothing to study, when they began.
The corner booth
Denmark is one of the countries where this issue has been addressed, according to Peter Plant from the Danish University School of Education. Peter Plant is the head of the DPU's counselling research. He participated in the EU-project and has been very active in putting guidance on the political agenda in Denmark. He finds that Denmark fits Pamela Clayton's description perfectly.
"Most counselling offers are found in the educational sector, and are aimed at students," Peter Plant says. When the public sector attempts to break this mold, the target group is nearly always youths and unemployed. There are, however, opportunities for people in jobs, and that is due to the Danish labour unions, who have played a very active and dominant role in establishing counselling opportunities for low-wage workers and unskilled labourers, Peter Plant Explains.
One example of this is the so-called counselling corners, where employees can find information and counselling about post-vocational training and career opportunities. The counselling corners were established by the then Women Workers' Union in Denmark (since merged into the United Federation of Danish Workers), and was tried out at a number of large and medium-sized companies. The idea is that the employees have access to counselling during even a short break from work. The counselling corner is manned by a union representative, and is located in a lunch- or a break room where the employees would come anyway.
"Getting out there makes a difference. It is important that counselling is in the workplace, rather than some fancy office downtown, however easy it might be to get there," Peter Plant explains. Another of the conclusions from the work with the counselling corners is that the service has to be individualised, and that it takes time, because there has to bee room for reflection. The latter is a special challenge, because the employees have to take time out of a busy workday to a counselling that may last a while. Another challenge is to make the employees accept the offer of counselling in the first place:
"Very few women in the workplace would come for counselling on their own accord. They couldn't see what good it could do them, and the nature of the offer was unclear to them. The general understanding was that counselling was for the unemployed," says Peter Plant.
Learning from other corners of the world
Although the counselling corner experiment was not without its problems, some of the participating EU member states recognised the potential, says Pamela Clayton. In Iceland, the concept was adopted by the largest trade union for low-wage workers, Efling, in collaboration with the educational fund Starfsafl. It has since then become common practice for the union to set up counselling corners, Pamela Clayton says.
Interestingly, Peter Plant brought the news back home to Denmark that Iceland had decided to use the counselling corners. This caused the Danish Ministry of Education to take notice of the experiment. Peter Plant also played a large role in convincing the OECD to make low-paid workers an important target for vocational guidance. This learning across national borders – in the case of the counselling corners both back and forth – was one of the original main aims with the project. It turns out that the European countries have quite a lot in common in this area, Pamela Clayton says, and this is one reason why they can learn so much from each other. A country such as the Czech Republic participated in the project with the specific aim to learn from the other countries. "They thought they needed to learn, so we transferred quite a lot to the Czech Republic," says Pamela Clayton.
Now the project website is a repository for experiences, and visitors can learn about the different experiences in each country in a variety of languages. The website also offers an on-line course designed by Peter Plant in counselling low-wage and poorly educated in the workplace. This online course is freely available and was an important reason for the EU's decision to award the project with the Leonardo Award. The course includes a section on the role unions and employers' organisations can play. These organisations play an important role because employees in the workplace typically have more to do with the employer and their union than with a public labour market office.
Counsellors combat social exclusion One might ask, then, if the publicly employed counsellor should change their focus from the unemployed and the youths? Should we not expect of people already in employment that they assume responsibility for their own continued learning and career development? Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Pamela Clayton explains that many low-wage workers dream about moving on in their work life, but that they lack the required competencies and that they even lack confidence in their ability to learn. Their chance of moving on is slim, and the risk that these people will lose their jobs is high, because of the gradual decline in the need for manual labour. This is why counselling plays an important role, not just for the economy, but also socially:
"We see vocational guidance as one way of combating social exclusion. The process can be seen as a learning process. People are not just given information. They learn to make decisions, and they acquire the confidence and the skills to find information and to find out what they want. This isn't going to change society, but it can mean that people become more self-activating and can act more appropriate to their wishes and needs," Pamela Clayton concludes.
About Pamela Clayton and Peter Plant
Pamela Clayton researches into vocational guidance and counselling and lifelong learning at the University of Glasgow.
Visit Pamela Claytons personal homepage.
Peter Plant is associate professor at the Department of Curriculum Research at the DPU, as well as the head of the counselling research unit.
Visit Peter Plants personal homepage.
Pamela Clayton
Read more about Pamela Clayton
Peter Plant
Punchline
"Getting out there makes a difference. It is important that counselling is in the workplace, rather than some fancy office downtown."
-Peter Plant