Adviser / Trainer skills and supporting tools
Skills and qualifications
advice-resources offers tools, directories and guides to support practitioners in the provision of information, advice and guidance. It is the prime source of information and tools in England, but broadly applicable elsewhere. It provides a wide range of tools and includes guides on: funding learning, disability awareness, working with ex-offenders and engaging with employers. The site has 800 Job Profiles and The National Learning Directory. There is also a Guide for the Older Workforce, which assists information, advice and guidance (IAG) advisers in understanding the needs of this client group.
Lifelong Learning UK has published a competency framework for Next Step, the new integrated adult careers service, elements of which may help in defining staff roles and identifying training and development needs. It has also developed a new set of qualifications for those working in the careers information, advice and guidance sector. These replace the existing National Vocational Qualifications and include a level three award and two diplomas at level four and level six.
Institute of Career Guidance is the largest professional association for career guidance practitioners in the UK.
The Institute for Learning is the professional body for teachers and trainers in FE and skills.
The Excellence Gateway is an online service for those working in the post-16 learning and skills sector in England.
Assessment tools
Some of these resources are free but most are charged. All are from reputable sources but providers will need to evaluate each for suitability and cost effectiveness, where appropriate – for their clients.
There is a wide range of assessment tools available covering different relevant areas, including employability (transferable) skills assessment, recognition of informal and/or non-formal learning, career interest and personality assessment. They include:
Employability skills / skills for life
The Skills Health Check tool will be accessible to customers online from the launch of Next Step, the new integrated adult careers service, in August 2010.
Move On offers a direct approach to promotion, engagement and delivery of life skills including numeracy, literacy and money management. It describes the benefits that learning and qualifications can bring, and encourages people to believe that they can progress. The site offers CPD for advisers and materials for use with learners including assessments of literacy and numeracy.
The Skills for Life Improvement programme offers a range of computer based and downloadable assessments for numeracy and literacy.
The Lottery funded Outcomes Star™ measures progress for service users receiving support in order to maximise independence or achieve other goals. There are different versions of the Star for different sectors (e.g. homelessness, substance misuse, and mental health). The pilot version for older people, The Older Person’s Star, was completed in April 2010 and the final version is expected to be available in the Autumn of 2010.
Adult Employability Tool (charged), is published by Tribal Education. This is a short questionnaire followed by discussion with an adviser to open up discussion of employability issues.
Career interest assessment
Adult Directions (charged) is a careers and skills matching tool designed to help adults with their career decisions. It is available online or as a CD ROM.
The advice-resources Skills and Interests Assessment helps users identify their skills to help them manage their career. They respond to a series of simple, step-by-step questions based on their current skills and interests. The tool generates a list of jobs that could be suitable for them. The tool is available online or as a CD ROM.
Personality assessment
There are some well-established tools such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) which is taken by two million people each year. The disadvantage is the time taken to train staff and then administer, score and discuss the results with individual customers. Other publishers, such as SHL, have personality tests available too. One way of introducing a discussion of personality types would be to encourage clients to take the BBC’s LabUK Big Personality Test and to use the results as a basis for discussion.
Labour market intelligence
NGRF Labour Market Intelligence
Information about jobs in different sectors
Facilities Management industry
Hospitality, leisure & tourism
Mentoring
PRIME provides a free mentoring service for those interested in self employment.
Horsesmouth provides free online mentoring services.
The Three Types of Executive Mentor
European Mentoring & Coaching Council (EMCC)
Motivational Business / executive mentoring
Building rapport
Mehrabian’s communications research
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Disclaimer
This site is for help and information only. It is not meant as an authoritative guide. It is not meant as an authoritative statement of the law, and future changes in the law and other programmes and initiatives could make it less accurate at times. TAEN, the Department for Work and Pensions and the European Social Fund take no responsibility for your use of the information. You should always take professional advice on any specific legal or financial matter.
