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Homeschooling Resources: Educational Issues

Career Counseling: Five Processes of Career Planning: Part II

Decision-Making

Decision-making has one dominant issue: How to select the most appropriate option from the range of alternatives discovered to date. Formal decision-making models and strategies may be useful; however, these strategies by themselves rarely leave clients with a good feeling for the decision. Most clients are more comfortable with decisions which "emerge" as a result of engagement in the career planning process. When initiation and exploration have been thorough, a "right choice" crystallizes for most clients. Formal strategies may then be used to confirm a choice, rather than determine a choice. Uncertainty is a major obstacle to career planning Most clients need to recognize that a certain amount of ambiguity is associated with any decision. At this stage in the planning process, clients need to rely on their intuition to guide them to tentative choices. This may be encouraged by exploring how clients feel about alternatives they have encountered during exploration, and by using "what if" scenarios to prevent perceived barriers from prematurely ruling out options (e.g., "What if it was possible to ...?). The emotional response to an option may then be used as the catalyst for cognitive appraisal (e.g., a consequences matrix) and specific preparation.

Preparation

Preparation focuses on planning the specific steps required to implement the choices made earlier (including the choice to engage in further exploration). Preparation results in a detailed, concrete plan for goal attainment and involves two key issues:

1. Developing an action plan which may include: Contracts between client and counselor that specify the next set of steps that will be taken by the client, and how those steps will be evaluated and reported; and time lines, or graphic action plans. A horizontal line is drawn across a page, with the word "Now" at the extreme left and the client's goal statement at the extreme right. Each major step required to achieve the goal is listed on the time line, with spacing proportionate to the estimated time needed. An opportunity web transforms the time line into a branching career path. For each major step, at least one alternative step is identified and plotted on the page as an intersecting line that produces a different path. The alternatives are identified by asking "What if for some reason you were unable to complete Step X - then what would you do?" Clients learn to prepare for uncertainty by thinking ahead and having a back-up plan ready.
2. Developing prerequisite skills and resources for implementation. These may include: occupational (e.g., job searches); educational (e.g., study skills, applying for admission to educational institutions); personal (e.g., anger management, substance abuse). The means for developing prerequisite skills must be included in the overall action plan. Clients should also identify the resources available and the resources needed for implementation (e.g., obtaining funding for education).

Implementation

In implementation, the client carries out the action plan. Two strategies govern implementation:

1. Developing support. Many decisions reached in the safety of the counselor's office are never implemented because of lack of support in the client's environment. Clients must learn both how to identify allies (as well as enemies) and how to nurture facilitative relationships.
2. Developing systems for feedback and reward. Clients also need to develop ways to monitor and reward their progress. Merging the social support and feedback functions helps clients develop independence from counselors.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, author, children's rights advocate, and Founder and C.E.O. of Learning by Grace, Inc. She and her husband of almost 3 decades reside with their 8 children in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. because "our current system of education has broken its promise..." Learning By Grace, Inc. delivers Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children in the United States and throughout the world.

Rothschild has authored a number of books about education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Daily Education News Blog contains feature stories on alternatives in education.

Five Processes of Career Planning: Part III