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Blueprint for Life/Work - Canada
Source: Blueprint for Life/Work
The Blueprint for Life/Work Designs is a joint partnership of and created by Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) and the National Life Work Centre.
The Blueprint for Life/Work Designs will help make career development intentional for more people. Too many Canadians, of all cultures, have the unfortunate view that career refers only to prestigious pathways through work; they do not see that each of us has a career, that each of us develops, and that work and life are inextricably intertwined. Hence, this document refers to life/work designs rather than to career development. The concept of life/work designs is intended to directly capture the ideas that:
The intent of the Blueprint is two-fold. First, the Blueprint sets out career development competencies that children, youth and adults will do well to master. These competencies are supplemented by performance indicators that elaborate upon the competencies.
At each level, the competencies are grouped into three broad areas:
Second, the Blueprint offers information about the structure, support and commitment necessary in organizations that desire to implement effective and comprehensive career development programs.
Career Development Programs in the 21st Century
In the last few years, career practitioners and their clients have been bombarded with messages about change. They know that factors such as globalization, demographic shifts and technological advances are creating a highly competitive, rapidly changing work environment. Among other things, this environment requires workers who are:
This environment requires workers who are more complex and capable than ever in history. They must be simultaneously focussed and flexible, quality-oriented and risk-oriented, independent and collaborative, leaders and followers, generalists and specialists. These paradoxes defy traditional ways of looking at work. As organizations strive to remain competitive, they seek new conditions for the workforce:
This has given rise to the emergence of numerous new work alternatives (e.g., job sharing, multi-tracking, brokering, talent pooling, consulting, contracting, telecommuting) that now affect and impact the lives of unprecedented numbers of workers. Although jobs will almost certainly always be with us, work is now being packaged in a variety of new ways.
The economy is likely to continue to change rapidly, so there will be ongoing change in the types of work required. Indeed, the very structure of work is changing.
Therefore, workers and prospective workers need not only ask the age-old question What should I do they must also ask, How should I do it and What should I do after that and How can I prepare for my next work as I do my current work This is a far more complex set of questions than What will I be when I grow up To ask and answer these types of questions, and then to act on ones answers, is the process of actively designing ones life/work. To do so well, a host of underlying skills, knowledge and attitudes are required. That is what this Blueprint is about. The Blueprint maps out the competencies essential to taking charge of ones life/work destiny in a complex, changing work dynamic.
The Blueprint for Life/Work Designs consists of four main components:
1. The competencies Canadians require, from childhood to adulthood, to effectively manage their life/work development.
2. A comprehensive process for developing and redesigning programs and products that will help Canadians acquire the above competencies in schools, post- secondary institutions, training programs, career centres and other settings in which career development interventions occur.
3. Appendices full of information that supports effective career development programming (needs assessments, other skills classification systems, portfolios, practitioner standards and guidelines, and career resources).
4. A Quick Reference Guide to help users quickly and efficiently find and use what they need within the Blueprint.
The Blueprint has multiple goals, but the primary aim is to have users work with a national framework of competencies to create comprehensive, effective and measurable life/work development programming and products so that Canadians become better able to manage their lives and work.
The Blueprint for Life/Work Designs has its roots in 10 years of research and development with thousands of career practitioners and educators across the United States in creating and refining the career development competency framework in the National Career Development Guidelines. Through a partnership with the U.S. Government and America's Career Resource Network (www.acrna.net), National Life/Work Centre, Canada Career Information Partnership and Human Resources Development Canada have, with partners in every province and territory, adapted the U.S. Guidelines to Canada. The same Canadian and U.S. partners have also collaborated for 8 years in the development and implementation of Canada's Real Game Series.
The first step in creating the Blueprint, under the supervision of a National Advisory Group of experts from across Canada, was to re-write the U.S. Guidelines with Canadian spelling, terminology, organizational and resources references, etc. The next was to pilot the draft Blueprint across Canada.
Two stages and four years of pilots, in diverse public and private sector agencies in all regions of Canada, convinced the Canadian partners that the U.S. competency and performance indicator framework is as valid in Canada as in the U.S.A. However, two U.S. competencies were merged (Canada has 11 competencies instead of the U.S. 12) and terminology was aligned with contemporary Canadian career development norms. For example, Canada keeps the same 3 career development AREAS, but the U.S. Self Exploration has become Canada's Personal Management; the U.S'. Educational and Occupational Exploration Canada's Learning and Work Exploration; and their Career Planning our Life/Work Building.
This forced a review of the entire competency framework through the "optic" of learning stages, development of taxonomies of verbs for each stage, re-visiting language usage throughout the entire Blueprint, and adding about 50% more performance indicators - particularly for the application, personalization and actualization learning stages.
At the same time, the LEVEL headings in the U.S. Guidelines (i.e., Primary/Elementary, Junior High/Middle School, High School, Adult) were removed for Canada. Educators and career practitioners during early Canadian pilots tended to focus on the column on the matrix for the level they deemed applicable. For example, high school teachers tended only to look at the column (three) with the title High School. Needs analyses, however, made it clear that many Canadian high school students have not yet achieved a Level Three mastery of some or all of the competencies. By removing the column titles, educators and career practitioners were forced to establish their students' or clients' actual level of mastery of each Blueprint competency before developing group and individual learning strategies.
Canadian Blueprint partners have also developed procedures for coding resources, products, curricula to the Blueprint competencies and indicators, at all levels and learning stages. Using a new "Blueprinter" function (see top right of screen), public and private sector agencies across Canada are able to Blueprint-code their resources, products and curricula. Teachers and practitioners may also code specific activities and lesson plans. Blueprint users can share the measurable standards they have developed for any performance indicator with other users across the country.
Having established their clients' needs and priorities in terms of Blueprint competencies and indicators, teachers and practitioners are able to search an on-line (Oracle) database to find resources (see the "Resources" button to the left), programs or activities to help their clients in addressing life/work building learning deficiencies.
The Blueprint for Life/Work Designs:
The Blueprint is a very comprehensive document with multiple uses! You may not need all of it. Think of using the Blueprint like you use your computer. If youre a typical user, you use your computer primarily for word processing, electronic mail and Internet access. But you know your computer is capable of much more than you are ever likely to need. If you are a sophisticated user, you use database, spreadsheet, graphic and programming software too. What you want is a computer that lets you do just what you need to do, quickly and efficiently.
The Blueprint can also help with a host of tasks, some of which you may not require. Sophisticated users will go through the Blueprint line-by-line and word-by-word. Typical users will use this Quick Reference Guide to quickly get to and use selected components of the Blueprint; some users may need only this Guide.
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