In January 2024, the CGC-DigiTrans project reached an important landmark in the delivery of the Roundabouts-method by the finalization of the “CGC Roundabouts for Digital Transformation” – Handbook.
The handbook is addressed to career guidance and counselling professionals, in further education and in the field of human resources management and development. In the handbook we describe the development of a multi-actor counselling approach for the promotion of the development of digital competences for persons in risk of missing out in the digital transformation.
The manual aims to provide the counsellors with a theoretical support in learning and applying the Roundabouts-method step-by-step. The Roundabouts-approach is a multi-actor counselling approach constructed in a set of logical phases the counsellor can go through step-by-step, together with other participants in the counselling process. The counselling process distinguishes different starting points depending on the context in which the client is in. The guidance process can be initiated by an employee or by jobseekers. But it can also be initiated by an employer or an organization in the field of career development for employees or unemployed.
In their daily work guidance professionals can make use of the handbook for different purposes. They can use the handbook as a support in learning and applying the method underpinned by examples. Also the handbook can be of help in understanding the theoretical background on which the method is based. Besides that the handbook offers a rich source of materials and tools that can be applied in the daily guidance practice. Last but not least an important purpose of the handbook is that it can be applied by participants in the guidance process to reflect on own attitudes and the attitudes of stakeholders.
An important part of the handbook helps practitioners to understand the six phases of the Roundabouts-method. In the Roundabouts-approach the counsellor supports the client and other stakeholders in going through the stages of Engagement, Assessment, Planning, Action, Results and Evaluation. The guidance process can be seen as a cyclic process, referring to the roundabout metaphor. For each of the six phases examples and counselling tasks are described to get familiar with the different stages in the process. The handbook also provides tools that the professional can use in the multi-actor approach. For this purpose, a toolbox is included in the appendix of the handbook.
Another important part of the handbook deals with the basic attitudes and skills that are needed to be able to work with the Roundabouts-method. The handbook provides concrete examples of attitudes and competencies needed to do so. Attitudes and skills are distinguished for the different stakeholders in the guidance process: counsellors, employers, training providers and of course the individual learners themselves.
The Roundabouts – Handbook is structured in such a way that more experienced career professionals can get acquainted with the method in a self-learning mode. On the CGC-DigiTrans website practitioners can gain further insights after we will have delivered an online training course that also aims to facilitate starting professionals and counsellors with less experience in the guidance process. The progress of these next steps in the CGC-DigiTrans project will be clarified in our next weblogs.
