Careers Services History, Policy and Practice in The United Kingdom

No history of the Careers Service has been written since the publication of "The Youth Employment Service" 1951, to which students are still being referred. With the exponential expansion of careers guidance training, the raising of the public profile of careers guidance across the world, and the current wildly differing policies across the UK, a broad-based overview is badly needed to set the context for future growth and understanding. This book is for students training to become careers officers, the tens of thousands Connexions advisers currently being trained, and career practitioners who inhabit a very well connected world and are eager for new material in this area.

From the pre-war Juvenile Employment Service to the diversity provided by Careers Scotland, Careers Wales, Connexions and Guidance Partnerships for Adults, David Peck analyzes the origins and development of careers guidance over the past one hundred years. Each new development in U.K. careers services is related to wider changes in social, education and economic policy, with references made throughout to major political figures with an interest in career choice, from Winston Churchill to Tony Blair. Particular attention is paid to the growth of a professional ethic among careers advisers: their training, qualifications and practice. This is the first ever published work to cover the history of the careers services in the U.K. Wide-ranging and meticulously researched, this book will make a significant contribution to the increasingly urgent debate on the future of career guidance, and for the first time calls the professionals to examine their past in order to improve and inform the future of careers services and their clients. Practitioners working in schools, further and higher education or with adults and young workers, student careers advisers and their tutors, should find this book an essential and comprehensive resource.

1. 1902-1948, Juvenile Employment and Welfare 2. 1948-1974, Youth Employment 3. 1974-1994, Careers 4. 1994-2000, Careers Companies 5. 2000-2001, Connexions and Disconnex 6. Diversity and Divergence 7. Some Conclusions