QYCGuidance project deals with the very new and unexplored tendency in career guidance that can be summarized with the slogan: “From career guidance to self-guidance skills”.

Nowadays the youth career guidance format undergoes rapid changes. More and more young people are learning about jobs and how to reach them through the net, asking for advice their peers or some more experienced people via social networks, job portals, discussion forums or other Internet services. Traditional face-to-face guidance in youth career centers shifts more and more to abilities of self-guidance. Here comes the question to what extent nowadays career consultants are familiar with modern media literacy. Skills like rating the information, validating the resources, intelligent searching, abilities to "scan" etc. become of vital importance for the career orientation. These skills are vital for the young people so that they can successfully operate and orient themselves in the net. Thus, career counselors must be able to advice and train young people in media literacy. This changes the shape of the modern consulting process - from pure career guidance to modern media literacy.

Aims and objectives:

-  to develop the consultants' skills in the area of so called "self-guidance" via modernizing the Quality Indicators (QI) and Quality Model (QM) in youth career guidance, including the development of new indicators related to nowadays media literacy (rating the information in the net, validating the resources, intelligent searching, abilities to "scan", social networks usage, ePortfolio usage etc.);

- to improve the quality of youth career guidance via providing innovative tools and manual for career guidance - online self-assessment toolkit for consultants to test their knowledge, skills and competences in media literacy and self-guidance;

- to train youth counselors and mangers of youth career services in modern aspects of youth career guidance and quality assurance;

- to develop a strategic partnership network among the partner organizations within the project so that the organizations continue working on the project main topics after the project end;

Target group:

-  youth guidance services managers;
-  youth career consultants;
-  the project results could be also useful for the pedagogic consultants (in the schools).

Potential users:

-  students from the universities;
-  young people just entering the labour market;
-  young people with fewer opportunities;
-  students in their final years in high school.  

Main products and results:

-  new learning outcomes (LO) and quality indicators (QI) related to nowadays media literacy, including LO and QI related to guidance of youth with fewer opportunities. These indicators are important for the consultancy process with the youngsters. The LO related to the work with youth with fewer opportunities and the LO related to modern media literacy will be incorporated in the online toolkit and the manual.

-  concrete tools (self-assessment) to measure the counselors' knowledge in the area of self-guidance and media literacy.

-  “Self-guidance and modern media literacy” manual with theoretical and practical information (cases) how nowadays youth career consultants should advice youngsters to use modern media in their professional orientation, in their job search and job application.

Impact envisaged:

- Increased competences (related to modern media literacy and working with disadvantaged youth) of youth career consultants, youth career services managers and pedagogic consultants;
-  Increased competencies in "self-guidance" field;
-  Improved QA approaches in the youth career services;

Supported by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. This project reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.