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In the past few years, it has become clear that career services have never been needed more. The OECD, ILO, World Bank, UNESCO and other global leadership bodies are all recognizing that career development is a critical lever in the socio-economic health of our world and saying, with one voice, that governments should be investing more in career services. Closer to home, Canada’s Future Skills Centre’s Responsive Career Pathways (RCP) papers clearly outlined that the services provided by the career development/employment services sector are critical to helping Canadians navigate a complex, and often chaotic, labour market.
Yet we also know that career services, especially those that are publicly funded, are under immense pressure. Career service providers are expected to do more with less, often with no prior training in career development, no proper onboarding and no access to professional development. Quality service is often actively disincentivized by policies that favour quick referrals to jobs. This all adds up to a patchwork of services, with no consistent standards of service, and a watering down of the complex competencies required to deliver services effectively. It is no surprise that our sector is not immune to our own labour shortages and high turnover.
A consistent theme across Future Skills Centre’s RCP papers was a deep need for stronger professional supports for the sector. To explore this need, in spring 2022, the Canadian Career Development Foundation (CCDF) and MixtMode explored the possibility of establishing a pan-Canadian Career Development Professional Centre (CDPC). The feasibility study was intended to check assumptions, assess need and determine priorities. In a short period of time, a small army of sector volunteers hosted 47 live engagement sessions across the country and over 560 CDPs shared their insights and ideas through an online survey. The overwhelming majority said, “Yes, absolutely a professional centre was needed and welcomed,” and a mountain of great ideas were shared to help shape it.
Then, the real work began. With funding secured, work to launch the CDPC started in fall 2022 focusing on six key pillars:
- Be a home for the competency framework, national profile and code of ethics and support the launch of national certification;
- Provide foundational training for a reimagined career development process;
- Establish an online social learning community to enable CDPs to connect with and support each other;
- Build a central hub to promote awareness of and provide access to training and other sector events;
- Facilitate knowledge mobilization to ensure research is more accessible and applicable for CDPs; and
- Be a unified voice to advocate for the sector.
By March 2023, the CDPC website, events calendar and online social learning community had been launched. A new course, Career Development Practice: Building a New Era, focusing on fundamental principles of what it means to work within career and employment services and introducing a reimagined career development process, was developed. The knowledge hub (the library) was launched at the end of April. The team continues to find and summarize academic, peer-reviewed, research literature, making it – we hope – more accessible to those working within career and employment services.
This past spring, the Centre also accomplished a first in the history of Canada’s career development sector – providing free training to close to 500 CDPs, across 30+ cohorts from coast-to-coast-to-coast. Six additional cohorts were offered in the fall, ensuring the CDPC course was offered in every region across the country. By the end of its first year, CDPC services and supports were being offered in English and French to over 1,100 CDP members.
As we approach CDPC’s first anniversary, we zoom out to how we hope to support the collective future vision for our sector. We are on the brink of launching national certification, based on our new standard and code of ethics. Just as Canada was the first country in the world to articulate our sector’s competency framework, we will now be the first country in the world to implement a competency-based certification. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with training providers across the country to identify and address gaps in available training and with researchers to support excellence and evidence-based practice in our sector. We know that, as a profession, we are stronger together. We hope to deepen and extend our social learning community in partnership with professional associations and other groups devoted to building connections between CDPs and supporting our collective professional identity. Finally, we look forward to amplifying the advocacy work of CERIC and working strategically with governments to support evidence-informed policy that elevates and supports the work of CDPs across the country.
Significant investments have already been made by FSC to test evidence-based interventions, promote scaling and mobilize social innovation, hopefully leading to a transformation of the systems in which CDPs work. Career and employment services are human services, and social innovation within any human service is only possible when the humans managing and delivering these services are supported professionally. This is the mandate and the mission of CDPC. We are excited to continue to co-create the Centre with CDPs across Canada, ensuring it tackles the biggest priorities, deepens partnerships, extends our sector’s capacity to reach those who need us most and strengthens our transformative impact on Canadians, families, employers, communities and the socio-economic health of our country.
