Why did your organization want to participate in the IMPROVE project?Ison psychometrica is a company that delivers career counseling services, designs and provides educational programs and workshops for counselors regarding issues of career guidance. Therefore, the project's goals were in accordance with the company's activities and areas of interest. We strongly believed that by undertaking this project we would enhance our methodologies, studying in depth the matter of assessment of competence of career guidance practitioners, provide better quality of services and significantly contribute to the design of new innovative approaches to the Greek community. Moreover we consider our know-how and experience acquired all these years in the field of career counseling a valuable asset that we would bring to the collaboration with the other organizations at a European level.
In your opinion, what is the benefit for your context?
In Greece, the assessment and certification of competence for CG (career guidance) practitioners is not applied formally. The profession of CG counselor isn't certified in the Greek context, so Greece is in need of such project, as it lacks official methodologies for assessing competences of counselors. There are only 3 public universities training CG counselors and several private organizations with this kind of activities but in some cases the validity of the methods used is questionable. Therefore, it was essential for the Greek context to develop a commonly agreed methodology of assessing competences of CG counsellors, as a product of the collaboration with experts on a European basis, which will be valid and effective and also easily accessible to the majority of counsellors. As a result of the project, Greek professionals and organisations in the CG sector will be benefited by having a tool for assessing and improving competence and the training organisations of CG counsellors could enhance the results in their training programs.
How would you briefly describe the IMPROVE pilot experience?
The pilot experience proved to be a positive surprise, as we realised that CG practitioners in Greece are highly interested in new practices and programs concerning CG, as there was a great number of counsellors that wanted to take part in the process. It was also a learning experience, as it gave the chance to talk about assessment and certification matters with several experts in the field on Greek and European levels and was also of great value as it proved that a methodology can be applied and be effective in different European countries.
What types of resources, tools, and activities do practitioners in your context use to improve their competence, abilities and skills?
In Greece, the common ways CG practitioners improve their competence are: taking part in training courses or conferences dealing with CG matters, having subscription in professional journals, searching on the internet, reading books, participating in forums or being supervised by an expert.
In the guidance context, do you consider that knowledge of or day to day conscious use of theoretical frameworks to be missing?
As proved in the pilot in Greece, the practitioners faced difficulty in recalling theories and names of authors. Though, it came out that a competent practitioner doesn't need to remember just a name or a theory, but the philosophy behind this, and mostly to be able to put it into practice. Therefore, what is needed by a practitioner is to be informed about the theoretical framework, but primarily to be able to enhance it in his/her practice and improve it according to his/her clients' needs.
More broadly, how would you describe the guidance (professional and academic) context in your country? Could you highlight examples of good practice?
Career guidance in Greece is a hot topic, and day by day gets more extents. In terms of academic matters on CG, there are 3 public Universities and several private organisations training CG practitioners. There are more than 100 private centres for CG, over 9000 CG practitioners in Greece, 3 professional associations and a journal on CG. Till recently there were more than 300 public CG centres for teenagers, but unfortunately, because of the financial crisis there were closed down. Despite this fact, the good point is that CG practitioners and associations in Greece are very active, organising workshops, conferences, taking part in forums, and therefore be able to keep up with the evolutions in CG on a global level.
