The symposium began with an insightful overview of the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Networks (ELGPN) aims which have long highlighted the importance of CMS in lifelong learning. This was delivered by Jorgen Brock from the Ministry of Education in Denmark. Jorgen talked of the different CMS policies across Europe.

Following Jorgen, Dr Siobhan Neary from iCeGS at the University of Derby, shared findings from the project research (Neary, Dodd and Hooley, 2015) with career practitioners across the partner countries. The research showed that most CMS training is delivered by one to one sessions (67%) and that just 54% of practitioners rated their CMS understanding as high. It is also important to note that understanding of CMS varies widely across the countries.

Dr Neary then went on to describe the CMS framework that has been developed as a result of the research which contains a set of competencies that individuals should develop to effectively manage their career. The competencies are; personal effectiveness, managing relationships, understanding the world, managing life and career and finding and accessing learning.

Following this, Ella Bujok from CASCAID presented details of the UK pilot project which is to test elements of the framework in practice. Each partner country is testing the framework with slightly different client groups.

In the UK, 2 pilots are taking place in two different educational settings to test 4 different elements of the framework. Ella explained the context in the UK, the range of CMS activities and how they vary across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Following this, delegates were walked through the pilot programmes in the UK, which include a range of activities and techniques to help young people develop CMS.

The pilots include a range of outside speakers, sessions on how to apply labour market information to career choice, online career tools such as Kudos and one to one sessions with qualified careers counsellors.

This was followed shortly by a talk from Josep Lluís Segú, Chief Executive at Educaweb, who presented research recently completed to understand the barriers for young people to develop employability skills and to understand how schools and guidance practices support the development of these skills.

One of the main outcomes of the report was that tutors and counsellors in Spain do not have enough time to help students develop CMS, which is mirrored across many of the partner countries.

Lastly, the symposium was closed by Giulio Iannis, Chief Executive of Pluriversum who summarised the state of the art and the role of practitioners in delivery of CMS. Giulio shared the projects aims with regards to a training model that will support practitioners in developing knowledge of career management skills.

Representatives from a variety of nations around the globe were present at the workshop and were involved in a Q&A session at the end. The presentations from the workshop can be found below.