The NSCDA partnered with Labour and Advanced Education, to revise the content of the current publications: The Guide to a Successful Job Search, Guide to Managing and Growing Your Career, Guide to Planning for Post-Secondary Study, Guide to Career Planning with Your Teenager, and Guide to Understanding Labour Market Information. Revisions to all  publications included:

• Considering tone, plain language, modern imagery, less text, literacy level, engagement tools, and ensuring no one option presented is prioritized over another.
• Enhancing content around interpreting labour market information (LMI) within all publications, rather than having a separate LMI document; Including information to manage expectations around the currency of information.
• Material and presentation must respect different modalities of learning, inclusion and diversity, proper language and be targeted towards the audience.

The NSCDA partnered with Labour and Advanced Education to review Labour Market Information (LMI) publications, material, and online resources to produce a learning plan, curriculum content and LMI Guide for Career Practitioners.

• This curriculum will be dictated by the newly updated LMI publications, results of the focus group and recommendations from the Labour Market Information Training for Practitioners report and the Assessment of Nova Scotia’s Labour Market Information and related products.
• This training will be delivered online, via the NSCDA’s learning management system, the “HUB.”
• All members have access to the HUB learning programs. This allows training to be easily updated and available 24 hours a day to those who have a login.

The NSCDA partnered with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development to review and update the “Parents As Career Coaches” program that has been offered across Nova Scotia for many years. This program was renamed “Let’s Talk Careers” to reflect the need for information that goes well beyond the child/parent relationship to include any community members who have an interest in helping youth succeed.

• Program material is being updated to ensure appropriate combination of printed and on-line based learning materials.
• These materials need to be accessible in a year-round format that can be delivered from a variety of locations, by a variety of career development professionals.
• Material and presentation must respect different modalities of learning, inclusion and diversity, proper language and be targeted towards the audience.
• Design of both marketing and communication plans will target youth, parents and community members to ensure increased uptake of the program in the future.

The NSCDA undertook a project to examine existing models for enhanced service delivery to older adult clients developed under the federally funded Targeted Initiative for Older Workers program.

Using current data provided by Nova Scotia Works centres feedback and the Government of Nova Scotia SHIFT report (2017), a broader picture of the needs, challenges and realities of older workers in job search has materialized.

The report presents 5 design options for enhanced services tailored to work within existing Nova Scotia Works centres resources, as well as strategies for marketing and implementing programs to an older worker demographic.

The NSCDA has partnered with Autism Nova Scotia to deliver an extensive training program to provide a richer understanding of autism and to better support the connection among clients, autism and employers. This training will clarify and define characteristics of the Autism Spectrum Disorder and its terminology; develop and enhance an understanding of the barriers faced; explain how to recognize, accommodate and provide support to clients with autism; increase an awareness of how to accommodate for diverse learners and the practical  application of the training.

The NSCDA partnered with the Department of Community Services in the development of the Career Development Standards and Competencies Certificate.

This certificate encompasses case management training for caseworkers together with casework supervisors’ training. Training is targeted to cover competencies outlined in the Nova Scotia Career Development Practitioners Core Competency Profile.

The NSCDA has partnered with Labour and Advanced Education to deliver training for the Nova Scotia Virtual project. A team of trainers, instructional designers, and content developers at the NSCDA will provide timely training, training documentation, online learning plans, and  extensive in-person training delivery to locations around the province of Nova Scotia. This is an exciting and groundbreaking project and the NSCDA is proud to be working on such an  important facet of career service delivery.

The NSCDA partnered with Insight Consulting to develop a comprehensive evaluation plan of the case management training being offered to Nova Scotia learners. An evaluation of the Case Management training program is required in order to determine if the training program is effective in increasing the competencies of case managers and subsequently improving services obtained by clients.

The evaluation will also identify changes and improvements that are required as more learners complete the program and the evaluation data becomes richer and more robust.

This initiative was developed in response to feedback from employers involved in the Summer Student Employability Skills Program.

Employers reported that students lacked important employability skills resulting in an unsatisfactory summer employment experience. Feedback from employers demonstrated that an increasing number of students required orientation to workplace expectations and as issues arose, required support during their employment.

The NSCDA partnered with Futureworx, a recognized leader in developing employability skills through the use of ESAT (Employability Skills Assessment Tool), to develop and deliver two pilot projects, for the summers of 2018 and 2019.

The goals were to:

• promote learner self-awareness surrounding employability skills and,
• to help participating students alter behaviours that were identified as problematic in the workplace.

By orientating students and employers to this approach and by using ESAT to support both parties during the program, improved outcomes were anticipated.

The project was funded by the NS Department of Labour and Advanced Education Youth Initiatives, and supported by Labour and Advanced Education Workplace Initiatives, as well as the Centre for Employment Innovation (CEI) who conducted two extensive evaluations of the pilot projects.

The NSCDA is partnering with Labour and Advanced Education, Adult Education Division on the design and delivery of a Transferable Skills Portfolio. This project involves the development of a 5-session portfolio development program designed to help job seekers identify and provide evidence of transferable skills.

The project includes the delivery of the new materials to clients of the Nova Scotia Works centres; revisions to materials and resources as required; and the development and delivery of facilitator training to NSW staff. Results are designed to provide the Nova Scotia Works system partners with an enhanced resource to work with adult learners on the identification and use of transferable skills in their employment and career journey.

The NSCDA is developing a strategy to raise awareness, standardize and grow the career development profession in Nova Scotia. Objectives are to identify ways to unite and standardize the profession; identify pathways for entry into and advancement within the profession; help diversify the sector and assist employers in retaining employees. A marketing and branding strategy will be developed to support the findings.

As a complement to the Career Services Guide: Supporting People Affected by Mental Health Issues, the NSCDA is developing a nine-module online training plan to introduce recovery-oriented practice to career practitioners. This is a concept that has been used primarily in the mental health realm, but is applicable to anyone who works with people in counselling, case management, or client service settings.