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Throughout May, Sally-Anne Barnes, Jenny Bimrose and Alan Brown have been delivering a number of webinars for the careers community in the UK and internationally.

Webinars have covered their recent research on the role of parents in providing careers guidance and how they can be better supported, and lifelong guidance policy and practice in the EU. Training webinars are also planned on the use of labour market information (LMI) as part of the new learning modules available on the website.

So far, webinars have been run for the Career Development Institute (CDI) in the UK, as well as the New Zealand Career Development Association (CDANZ) and the Careers and Transition Education Association (CATE) with many more planned over the next few months, including for Australia. Listen to the CDANZ webinar here.

A recent report from the suggests that youth unemployment could rise by 640,000 this year and the s is predicting around 100,000 leavers will find it difficult to gain work and work-based learning. So with these record unemployment levels amongst young people predicted, an important issue that is likely to emerge strongly for the careers profession from the COVID-19 pandemic is exactly how educational institutions can maximise the impact of their work with parents and carers to support the young people in their care with their career education and progression. This, of course, also has the potential to help young people continue to learn and develop whilst away from their schools for any reason, including any future periods of social isolation that might be necessary as a result of recurrent waves of infection.

Lifelong guidance policies and practices are viewed as crucial parts of current EU policy initiatives around validation of learning and the Pillar of Social Rights.

The aim of the research, undertaken by Dr Sally-Anne Barnes together with colleagues at the IER and the Finnish Institute for Educational Research at the University of Jyväskylä, was to examine lifelong guidance policies and practices and to provide an evidence base for priority-setting, as well as supporting dialogue with stakeholders on lifelong guidance and, more widely, skills strategies.

The final presents findings from the research identifying 11 key features of lifelong guidance systems in the EU, lifelong guidance actors and innovations in practice. It concludes with some recommendations for the Commission and those in working in the careers field. Read the press release here.

Professor Jenny Bimrose was awarded the Rodney Cox Lifetime Achievement Award at the CDI’s ‘UK Career Development Awards’ held on 11 March. The presentation was made by Dave Cordle, the CDI president, on behalf of the CDI’s board of directors.

The award is in recognition of Jenny’s sustained and significant contribution to the careers sector in which she has worked in for over 40 years. Jenny recently retired from IER, but has continued her research in the careers field. The award was sponsored by C&K Careers.

While Jenny was unable to attend the official award ceremony because of self-isolation, she is now holding the CDI Award in her hands.

You can read more on Jenny’s career and her recent publications in this University of ÌÇÐÄTV press release.

It is a widely accepted notion that involving parents in careers education and guidance (CEG) is highly desirable. Although parents and carers undoubtedly influence the career development of young people in their care, with a range of consequences, robust evidence of what, when and how parental behaviours constructively support their children’s learning about career progression remains elusive.

Sally-Anne Barnes, with Jenny Bimrose, Alan Brown and John Gough, have been undertaking an international evidence review to understand how parents and carers can be better supported by schools and colleges to feel more informed and confident in how they support education and career choices. This has been undertaken with the support of the Gatsby Foundation and the JP Morgan Chase Foundation. This study has produced a wealth of experiential evidence on the engagement of parents, as well as an overview of what is happening in practice.

The evidence report has now been published. Sign up to find out more or join an upcoming webinar. Read the press release here.