Career Intervention: How to Choose or Change Your Career

Career choice and development is an uphill task which faces all middle school students in the majority of the campuses. The students have to make decisions influencing the life they live after graduation. Career choice, therefore, entails an absolute choice which the student plans to stick with throughout their lives. Misplaced career choices would result in misplaced courses and as such, a string of tarmacking and lack of employment opportunities would follow. Misinformed career choices would also make it necessary for the students to go back to school in pursuit of other more profitable careers. 

There is also the aspect of personal fulfillment in career choice which influences the satisfaction that an individual derives from working in a specific career. The education that students gain from schools up to the 8 th grade plays a role in determining the career choices they make. An efficient amount of information is supposed to be impacted by them up to that period. This aspect makes the tutors before and up to this level a vital tool in shaping their careers. The tutors offer the children a contrast to their personal beliefs. They help the students to evaluate their beliefs and expectations from the existing career choices (Nile, et. al., 2013, p. 165). 

They also help determine the profitability of any of the choices that the students wish to take. They also get the chance to nurture and advise the students on the best ways to nurture the dream careers they plan to choose. This paper details a career intervention program aimed at helping the students by improving any career choices they might have and enhancing their choices. The program intends to facilitate competence in career choices by students by providing them with a mirror to evaluate themselves. 

Target population 

My role as a school counsellor provides me access to high school students who fit well within the target population of students for the program. The aspect of career development and exploration necessitates that I select high school students who are at risk. At risk in this context refers to students who potentially at risk of three issues. The first is the students who risk not graduating from high school. The second group entails the students who will not be ready to join college after high school and the last group has the students who risk being unready for careers by the time they graduate. Another inclusion into the population labeled at risk is the population from the economically unstable families. 

The students who are classified as at risk have a common ground in that they have respective needs which require them to be helped, on a continuous or a one-time basis, so as to accomplish the goals they have in school. Since the barriers necessitating the interventions vary with the students, the types of interventions and the time the intervention is offered vary. 

The target population is the high school students in my campus whose total amounts to 98% Hispanics. This particular population comes from low-income families, and the level of education of their parents is mostly secondary and below. The majority of these parents lack formal jobs and as such, their children have minimal exposure to the world of work. 

The low economic status of their families and the aspect of being a racial minority have both been cited as key factors that influence the lag in the career development of Hispanics as compared to other students. The lack of exposure to work-related environments also denies the students a firsthand platform for the evaluation of careers and such it limits their conversance in matters related to career development and choice. 

Population needs 

The primary need of the target population that this program aims to address is the aspect of self-discovery and self-awareness. The aspect of knowing oneself is a vital one in the process of evaluation and decision-making during career choice. Self-discovery describes the evaluations of a person’s best fitting fields. Self-discovery is driven by the aspect of self-evaluation based on firsthand experience of an individual’s life. The individual gets to analyze the best careers based on their personal interest and the exposure they have. 

Exposure provides the students a platform to analyze real-world careers and determine their best platforms. Rational career choices are based on the level of exposure that a student gets from evaluating the current and needed careers. This exposure is attained as a result of exploration whereby a student gets to analyze their dream careers from a real life perspective allowing them to approach middle school as an informed group. 

Program objective 

The program aims to create self-awareness so as to fulfill the role that middle school is supposed to deliver to students. The roles of middle school are described to include the following: middle school is supposed to ensure that students get the relevant skills required to examine the world of the working. This examination should be based on the level of personal knowledge that the students have and as such, it should serve as a basis for the making of informal career decisions. 

The second role of the middle school is to impact practical skills on the students, skills which will ensure that the students get to achieve success in the future. Lastly, middle school should enhance students’ capacity to understand the relationship between the qualities that make up a person, the education and training they acquire and the world in which they are going to work. 

Given the role of self-awareness in career development, this program is vital in the process of career development. Attaining self-awareness is propagated by interest and aptitude inventories. This combination has a great role to play in facilitating the exploration of the areas that students may not have explore before. Students are challenged to explore every aspect of themselves which is vital to career development and as a result, they can start the exploration process afresh. The information gathered from both inventories is useful in engaging the middle school students, arousing their interest and capacitating them to make viable decisions concerning career choice. 

Resources 

The development of a career development curricula necessitates the input of all stakeholders in the routine. The teachers capacitated to elect career connections for the students are viable in the administration of surveys and two inventories discussed above in their classes. Core teachers are also viable in educating the students on the benefits that people gain from attaining post-secondary education. This includes the exploration of the various career choices and the benefits associated with them. 

The second resource useful in the achievement of the program objective is the inclusion of the community in the same. The community has an important role to play since it has examples of the people who have pursued various career choices and the consequences of their choices are visible to all. To counter the norm where people from distinct professions visit the school and narrate their achievements in their respective fields, the community has the platform for the students to evaluate the professions on a real time basis. 

Real-time, in this context, refers to the allocation of time to the students to visit and evaluate the respective professions as the professionals go along with their work. Students could be allowed to visit a bank and see the accountants in sessions and then later; they would be educated on the very benefits of following up on the same professions. 

This hands-on experience allows for a basic evaluation which allows the students to determine the careers they would want to be. The visits should be scheduled in a manner that allows the students to visit all of the professions within their interest inventories. The decisions they make regarding their careers after visiting such institutions are bound to be informed and based on practical experience. 

The third entity whose participation would be vital for the accomplishment of the objectives is the students themselves. Apart from the use of practical experience from within the community as discussed above, the students are very significant in the process of self-awareness and self-evaluation. This is because there exists a set of students who have the potential to analyze their courses and make decisions based on what they learn from their real life experiences and from sharing with others based on common interest in groups. 

These students would need to be grouped based on interests and then be allowed to discuss their interests. The discussions would be chaired by a well-informed individual whose selection would be based on the interest of the group. The chairperson would then clarify on the technicalities surrounding the career choices by the students and walk them through the expectations they may have regarding the careers. This is key in establishing interests based on information and facts as applies to the students take to professionals in real life. 

Assessments 

A questionnaire is vital to evaluate the level of the readiness of a student to make decisions related to career choices. The questionnaire serves as a measure to ensure that the students who participate in the study are relevant population. The questionnaire will also ensure a perfect evaluation of the level of student exposure and as such, it will be used to determine the type of exposure to accord the students (Niles,et. al., 2013). 

To analyze the values, interests and abilities that the students possess, I will apply Career Decision Making System proposed by both Harrington and O'Shea. This system evaluates the interests and values of the students against the career information which is updated on a daily basis. This system was first published in the late 1970s, but many revisions and updates are accorded to it with the aim to ensure that it is refined as best as possible (O'Shea and Harrington, 2003). 

The system was availed in an online format in 2000 to allow students to receive a detailed information on the occupations available corresponding to their input principles, interests, abilities and values. The format on paper has two instances based on the level of the participants. The first instance is for the fourth graders while the other is for seventh graders. The assessment duration is between 30 and 45 minutes. The method has been classified as the most effective in among multiple similar methods evaluated. This makes it be recommended by the American Counselling Association (O'Shea and Harrington, 2003). 

Assessment Rationale 

The assessment is graded as worthy for the assessment of the six types of personality in Holland. This makes the assessment appropriate to evaluate people in the age group ranging from seventh grade to adults. The assessment also provides a platform for the evaluation of the interests, abilities and the values that the students hold. The target population for this study is the students who require making career choices in their eighth grade. This makes the assessment criteria to be fitting and applicable for the current study. The results of this assessment are bound to portray results which best fit and quantifies for the study population. The provision of an online format ensures ease of access and as such, the students who seek self-awareness have an easier task in their job (Nile, et. al, 2013). 

Preferred outcome 

The preferred outcome of the current program is the fulfillment of the objectives detailed in the study. The primary objective is to ensure that the students acquire self-awareness as a trivial attribute. Acquiring the same will ensure that the students make a proficient decision concerning choosing a graduation plan that suits their career objectives. This also serves to guide the decisions that the student makes regarding career choices are well informed and based on practical knowledge. 

Communicating and interpreting results 

Understanding and effectively analyzing the results would rely intensely on several aspects. The primary determining entity is the Career Connections teachers. These teachers have the required training which capacitates them to guide the students as they approach the working world. These teachers would play a vital role in interpreting the results and also in acquiring the resources that the students can access on the system. These teachers would just require some training to ensure that the data they receive is translated based on the preset guidelines. 

The teachers are also responsible for guiding the students through the online format of the system so as to ensure that the data filled in is accurate. This would also ensure that the information being translated is accurate. Filling in of wrong details would result in a miscalculated report and as such the results of the program would be different from the actual details. Students would be misled to choose the wrong careers if they failed to understand the functionality of the system. 

Going over the results together with the students would help to clarify any misunderstandings in the report and in the translation of the same. The students would get an additional chance to understand the information and the feedback from the system. The teachers would get an additional chance to mold the students based on the personalized reports generated by the system. 

Evaluation 

A second take at the same survey is vital to the determination of the accuracy of the program. This would be placed just before the interest survey since there exists a period of time between the first inventory and the inventory of interests. The two surveys are basic guidelines for analyzing the feedback of the students before and after they undergo the program. By gauging the students before and after, the analysts get a chance to determine the actual content that they get from the program. 

This determines the efficiency of the system in terms of self-awareness. Understanding the contributions of the interventions ensure that the school will determine whether or not to continue the program in the future. A functional program is likely to be reused in the future. One with minimal functionality can either be modified or discontinued altogether. 

Issue, strengths or obstacles 

Strengths refer to the advantages that arise from implementing the program in the current system. The first strength is defined in the program objective. The program provides the students a chance to be self-aware, to engage in activities that foster their exploration in terms of exploration, in the educational sectors as well as occupational wise. The compactness of the program is clear from the objective to allow the students to plan for their future. Self-exploration allows students to rate their feelings and needs by analyzing them alongside the vocational and educational options they are provided with (Krumboltz, 1999). 

Assessments allow for the identification of key issues in career choice among students. It aids in determining the best intervention for the specific students who undertake the program. The assessments also provide the students to interact with other students with similar choices and thus they have a chance to interrelate and gauge their knowledge against each other. This provides the students an instance to perfect their skills and attitudes as they prepare to apply and advance in their respective careers of choice. 

Exploration allows the students a more realistic approach to careers. This approach is based on informative experience from the respective careers that the students get a chance to explore while still in school under this mentorship program. This allows the students to make responsible decisions based on their knowledge of the desired career choices. The choices made with respect to the evaluations, assessments and the evaluations that the students garner from the program. 

A leading stumbling block in the way of the program is the means to incorporate all program members onto the table. The participants are all involved and extensively invested in their respective curricula. The proposal of a concurrent program would require the devotion and goodwill of the students. This is because adding the teachers into the program would require them to invest extra hours into a program which is still under evaluation. This would make the remuneration from the program to be contentious since the program results are yet to be verified. The investment of extra hours into a program in trial stage would therefore be deemed as a waste of time and resources for the teachers. The teachers would rather invest in the programs that have been established since it is sure. The agenda of the curricula would, however, ensure that the participants would be involved in it since they would get a chance to incorporate their own curricula into that one (Krumboltz, 1999). 

Reflection 

The proposal to advance post-secondary education in students is a key determiner in the progress that people make in their academics and therewith, their economic status. The lack of proper education and the poor career choices taken by the students often result in a dim academic future both for them and for the generations that follow them. Many schools, therefore, organize for scholars to visit them and to educate the students on the vitality of making significant career choices. The choices are not well explained for the students and as such, the students still end up making wrong choices. 

The education and advice regarding the same is also offered in the last year just before the choices are made and as a result, the students have minimal time to explore and determine their best fit. The generalization of the guidance also leaves too much unanswered such that some students find them ambiguous. 

The means of delivering the advice needs to be personalized as proposed in this program to ensure that each student gets a well-informed approach of the same. The use of surveys as proposed in this program is also vital in ensuring that the students are evaluated both before and after the program to ensure that the program function as required. Integration of a real life approach into the curricula is also significant given that it aids in shaping the work environment in the minds of the students. 

References 

Krumboltz, J. (1999). Introducing the CBI. Retrieved from http://prezi.com/fx7didwptftm/career-beliefs-inventory/ 

Niles, S. G. & Harris-Bowlsbey, J. (2013). Career Development Interventions in the 21st Century (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill. 

O'Shea, A. J., & Harrington, T. F. (2003). Using the Career Decision-Making System-Revised to Enhance Students' Career Development. Professional School Counseling , 6 (4), 280-286.