The Scottish Government

« Previous | Contents | Next »

Listen

National Review of Assessment: Identification of the Learning and Support Needs of Young People

Chapter 3: National Telephone Survey of Careers Service Companies

Structure of this chapter

The chapter begins with a description of how the evidence was gathered. It then describes some key features of assessment practice in the companies and in their localities. The sections which follow identify gaps in provision and highlight key issues for consideration. In Chapter 5 these issues are discussed in more detail, alongside other issues emerging from the discussions with careers service companies (CSCs) which were echoed in the experiences of those involved in the research as a whole.

Procedure

All 17 careers service companies were asked to nominate a member of staff who would best be able to respond on behalf of the company to questions about assessment approaches used by the company. Each did so, with two nominating two members of staff. In addition to describing approaches to assessment by the careers service, respondents were asked to give details of assessment approaches known to them to be in use in the locality. They were also asked to identify good practice, gaps in assessment provision and key issues. No single interviewee could be expected to know everything that was happening in one area, and so there will inevitably be good practice that we have not listed here.

These pre-arranged telephone interviews typically lasted between 1 to 2 hours, and those responding were asked to send examples of the company's assessment documentation and to gather together and send on a number of examples of assessment practices in use in other agencies.

The sections immediately following describe some of the key features of the assessment scene as described to us by our respondents.

Approaches to delivery of special needs services

In all CSCs the approach to delivery of services to young people with special needs was a mixture of generic and specialist provision. There were three main types of structure for this delivery. Some CSCs had members of staff with a full time special needs role. These individuals negotiated Service Level Agreements with other organisations, developed multi-agency approaches, tried to develop protocols about exchange of assessment information and provided advice to generic staff in working with young people with special needs in their caseload. They might liaise on behalf of the CSC with the Education Department, Psychological Services, Social Work Departments, Regional Paediatricians, Home Teaching Services, Health Boards, Employment Medical Advisory Services (EMAS) etc. They were often also responsible for the design of documentation recording needs and interventions and commonly carried a small specialist caseload.

Other CSCs had a specialist worker based in each area office, often holding a Level 1 or 2 qualification in working with young people with special needs. These members of staff would normally meet other area specialists to draft documentation and suggest strategies for the company, and would have a combined generic and specialist caseload.

In smaller CSCs there would be a "named person" who would (like other colleagues) have both a generic and specialist caseload, but would provide support to colleagues and respond on behalf of the CSC to consultation documents and take responsibility for inter-agency liaison.

These approaches to delivery of special needs services had been designed when the main focus was on young people with physical, sensory or intellectual impairment. At the time of the research, and in the period leading up to it, special needs careers services had been increasingly involved in working with young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties in special education. They were also recognising the need to develop services to young people with drug, alcohol, housing and offending issues and to extend the number of organisations involved in multi-agency working to cover those supporting these young people.

Approaches to assessment for young people with support needs

Approaches to assessment of need were more varied. These ranged from the relatively unstructured:

'Approaches to assessment in (this CSC) are in their infancy. Everyone does a bit.'

to those areas which had specialist assessment teams, usually designed to focus on the assessment of Special Training Needs for supported Skillseekers training. There were some issues of concern about how the specialist teams and their generalist colleagues worked together, and these will be discussed in the final section of this chapter.

The focus was broadening in anticipation of the implementation of Inclusiveness projects. In several CSCs, a central specialist post (sometimes called the Inclusiveness Manager) was being developed, and the need to integrate the provision of special needs services with STN assessment was being recognised.

A classification of approaches to assessment by CSCs.

All CSCs used a range of approaches from psychometric measures to a 1:1 interview to assess the career development needs of young people and young adults and to help their career development. These included interest guides such as Matchpoint, Adult Directions, Kudos etc. These could be used across the full range of clients, not just those with particular support needs. However, it was also apparent that the development of assessment in areas had three particular underlying orientations. Each CSC exhibited aspects of each, but the balance of attention given to each was different. These three orientations were:

1. Placing/provision orientated. The development of good quality assessment was primarily driven by the need to ensure that young people's learning and support needs were appropriately identified so that provision in training or work was matched to their needs. Much work was being done to develop and maintain assessment that would lead to "endorsement" so that training resources could be released.

2. 'It's about making sure that you know enough about young people that you don't put them into the wrong place for them… and about showing others what their needs are and making sure the money's there to help.'

3. Networking/support agency orientated. Here good quality assessment of need was seen as being derived primarily from the quality of inter-agency working; the broader this was and the more trust there was (and understanding and respect of professional expertise), the more clients' general interests were served. In this situation, the drive was to develop protocols for confidentiality and exchange of information and to maintain and establish good working relationships.

4. 'Our expertise in assessing young people's needs is about linking with others, using their expertise, making sense of what they say and applying it to employability. Then it's about keeping the good relationships and showing them how their assessment evidence has been used to help youngsters with needs.'

5. Guidance orientated. Here assessment of learning and support needs was seen as part of a continuum of assessment. Assessment was about "learning about yourself so that you can cope better" and was seen as empowering for all young people including the most able and the most motivated.

'Assessment is part of the guidance continuum, helping young people to pick up more effectively career management skills. Careers Services should offer assessment services to a wide-range of clients, including those at post-graduate level. This should give all clients the opportunity for structured self-appraisal. It is such a powerful thing to know yourself better!'

It is important to emphasise again that there were aspects of all three orientations present in the descriptions of assessment in all the CSCs.

There were some clear differences in how CSCs viewed assessment, as described by our respondents.

'Assessment is trying to measure an individual's capabilities with some form of objectivity… i.e. where you're in a position to assess someone's capabilities in comparison with the peer group or with standards of performance.'

'Assessment gives a realistic baseline to start with the young person and to move discussion forward. Assessment ensures that the young person and the careers adviser can compare perceptions of the current situation of the young person, and lets both see progress.'

'This company is not into specialist assessment units or tooling up careers advisers with psychological tools but it does strongly support ensuring good working relationships across individuals and agencies. I'm really concerned about the process of objectification because it can be spurious - you need to make sure any assessment is regularly reviewed and young people own it. I'm concerned about this drive to testing. Often the information gathered is not used and reports are not read. Providers of education and training don't use the information they have gathered or that others have gathered about the client.'

Clarification of the term "assessment"

Some of the differences in approach and attitude were the result of differences in interpretation in what was meant by "assessment". Our advisory group suggested that a number of organisations in the field were sensitive about the term "assessment" (with its connotations of pass/fail and with resonance of bad experiences for some of the client group). Instead a more accurate (and possibly politically correct) term would be 'the identification of learning and support needs.' However, in using this terminology in early stages of the research it became clear that this also caused difficulties as it appeared to imply a deficit model, with identification being focused on difficulties rather than on a balanced view that took account of strengths.

We proposed a tentative rewording of terminology which we incorporated into the interview schedule which was used as briefing for the staff we were preparing to interview. This description was, on the whole, thought to be uncontroversial. Our wording defined the stages of the identification of learning and support needs as:

• recognition of need, without necessarily being clear about the nature or level of the need. Much referral activity is the result of this, for example, a careers adviser recognising that a client has difficulty in filling in an application form ;
• assessment of current skills, attitudes and need, and level of support required. In the example described, a basic skills assessment of literacy might be used;
• comparison of results of assessment of learning and support needs with actual provision. Again in the example, the results of the literacy test might be compared with the provision of a range of training providers to see which was most suitable for the client;
• use of assessment evidence to lead to provision of support or to development of existing support to meet need or to advocate for new support mechanisms or provision. Where provision was available, evidence from a literacy assessment might be used to endorse the application of the client to supported training or to use as part of a case to develop supportive literacy provision for a client group.

This definition will be used throughout this chapter.

The use of commercially-produced assessment tools by CSC staff

It has been noted that all CSCs made use of career interest guides as part of their careers guidance processes. These measures of career interests were used as both indicators of career development needs and also as a way of addressing that need. It was also clear that many companies had gone through phases of investing in the training of staff to BPS Level A ⁷. This was primarily to enable staff to use specific aptitude and ability tests or batteries with individuals or client groups. Across Scotland, however, with respect to the use of aptitude and ability tests, a pattern of initial use and enthusiasm followed by uneven and then occasional test use was clear. The reasons for this included:

• the time that had to be devoted to each client undergoing testing, and to setting up the conditions required;
• the costs of non-renewable materials;
• the loss of trained staff to other CSCs or to other duties. In one CSC, for example, all those trained to use a particular test had been promoted into posts which did not carry a caseload;
• The difficulty some staff experienced in convincing clients of the value of the assessment.

The end result was that sometimes only one or two enthusiasts in a CSC continued to make use of commercially-produced tests or to push for continuing investment in them. However, some CSCs operating New Deal Gateway did pilot the use of a number of commercially produced assessment tools with New Deal clients, some of which became mainstream for use with this client group. But even where there was a financial incentive for completing a commercially-produced assessment, a high percentage of young adults did not complete the process.

As will be discussed later, many staff thought that there was more value in using such tools with adults than with young people, since assessment information was less likely to be recent or accessible.

'It would be OK using these with adults, in fact it would be good because we have so little information on them.'

The range of commercially-produced assessment tools in use in CSCs

Test batteries were in limited use. FEATS was used by a number of CSCs, most commonly with adults, but rarely was the full battery used: the personal qualities and vocational guidance elements were most likely to be used. The Morrisby profile was also a tool that a few CSCs had offered to client groups.

Many CSCs had come across the Rickter Scale in their links with New Futures Fund (NFF) programmes: some of these had seconded careers advisers. Their experience had encouraged a number of CSCs to consider piloting this self-assessment measure with young clients.

Many CSCs had access to basic skills assessments, most commonly the Initial Assessment of the Basic Skills Agency, and this was used when there was insufficient background information about clients.

Those CSCs which had been involved in the piloting of the Scottish Executive's Support Needs Matrix were likely to be using this in an adapted form. This was not itself an assessment tool, but a way of synthesising existing assessment evidence and of reviewing the progress made.

Beyond this, the main commercially produced packages in use were career-related, and most of these were focused on self-assessment. These included:

There was a clear recognition that developments were needed in the assessment of "soft" skills and employability but it can be seen that CSCs had little experience of using commercially-produced measures of core skills or personal effectiveness.

A number of commercially-produced tools had been, or were being considered for possible use by CSCs. These included:

• MAPS
• Learning Styles questionnaires
• Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI)
• Bridges to Progress.

Other commercially-produced assessment tools known by CSCs to be in use in the locality included:

• Personal Profile Analysis by Thomas International
• Pacific Institute materials which incorporated assessment within a development programme.

Respondents were asked to comment on the commercially-produced assessment tools they had used or considered, and from this a list of the criteria for identifying a good commercially-produced tool was extracted. Taking account of the needs of the client group (i.e. young people with learning and support needs) it should be:

• able to provide immediate feedback to clients, and this feedback should be in a form that clients could easily access;
• easy to incorporate into a guidance interview;
• non-threatening (and this usually meant capable of being administered informally);
• possible for the client to be in control, and to have ownership;
• supportive and not damage the relationship between the adviser and the client;
• clear in its purpose;
• capable of being interpreted in a positive light if possible;
• able to help young people see how they could cope, not just tell them what they already knew.

A number of CSC respondents expressed their own concern (or that of colleagues) about the impact of the use of such tools on the guidance process. Some felt that young people would react badly to being "tested", or that they would feel that careers advisers were checking up on them. If clients were referred to other agencies to do the testing, perhaps that might have less impact on the relationship between adviser and client.

'We prefer to refer a young person where we're not sure they're telling the truth about literacy or numeracy for testing to community education or the college because they're independent of the process. It doesn't damage the relationship so much if the careers adviser isn't having to say, 'Look, you've been rumbled!' He can say instead, 'This is what community education are saying, do you agree?' and it doesn't break the relationship with the client.'

While this comment may be understandable, such an approach to assessment may impact on the relationship that this client may subsequently have with the college or community education staff. It also illustrates the value of multi-agency agreements on approaches to assessment in a locality and of the role of the key worker as a consistent point of contact rather than as an assessor.

Using documentation or home-produced measures to assess the needs of young people

All CSC respondents reported the use of a variety of documentation or reports to assess needs. Using our earlier definition, needs were "recognised" in a variety of ways. Screening forms were completed by young people (primarily school pupils). These included questions about health, interests and extent of "career focus". They often also asked young people to indicate their own assessment of the help they needed (related to career choice or job finding). In addition to alerting careers advisers to possible needs, screening forms were typically used to set priorities for careers guidance interventions and to manage a caseload.

Pre-interview forms were sometimes used in addition to screening forms to encourage further self-assessment. These occasionally were fairly detailed and could be used to assess careers guidance needs, for example, asking how confident young people felt about leaving school and making a decision, how developed they thought their job or course search skills were, or the extent to which they thought they had knowledge and understanding of the choices open to them.

Reports from school staff on young people's abilities and needs were used in every area. Assessment information for young people with recorded needs and for Future Needs Assessments was consistent and thorough in most areas.

It was becoming much more common for careers advisers to liaise directly with learning support staff rather than through the guidance staff. Information was usually provided orally, although one CSC had devised a system where a checklist assessing need (including core skills, independent living, social settings, parent support) was used to provide a structure for discussions with learning support staff. Another had used a detailed report form to harness the particular expertise of learning support staff.

Increasingly careers advisers were developing and structuring links to behavioural support staff, and this was recognised as an area needing development.

Reports on school pupils whose needs were not recorded were of varying quality. There were great variations in the way this was provided and in the quality of the information included, and these variations were across CSCs, within CSCs and even within individual schools. Sometimes needs were not recognised, sometimes the information was limited to "recognition" (e.g. 'this pupil has got a lot of social problems'), while in other instances needs were more clearly assessed (e.g. 'this pupil needs to have instructions broken down into simple blocks and cannot work steadily unless supervised'). Some CSCs received few written school reports, and in this situation most of the information on school pupils' needs was oral, or gleaned by the careers adviser directly from the pupil's guidance file. There was some frustration that evidence from schooling was insufficiently available.

'Pupils go through a two-year assessment programme…. It's called 'Standard Grade'. But you often only see the end results, not the individual skills being learned as part of it.'

Evidence from work experience reports on young people's skills and development needs were almost always a feature of the careers adviser's assessment when dealing with young people in special education or with recorded needs. However, unless the school report from the guidance teacher specifically referred to work experience, only occasionally did careers advisers have access to reports on how mainstream clients had done on work experience, or any other part of the Education for Work provision.

Where careers advisers worked with small-sized groups of young people, recognition of behavioural, attitudinal and personal presentation needs could sometimes happen. Observation of how young people presented themselves at one-to-one interviews was often a key way in which to recognise need.

A few CSCs had experimented with the use of "self characterisation" statements and one had already implemented this quite widely across the company. This was an approach to self-assessment that used the principles of Personal Construct Psychology to help to identify the context within which each individual sees his or her own world. The completed self-characterisation was used within a careers guidance interview.

A number of CSCs had devised (or adapted) checklists of employability skills. These commonly were on a five-point scale, and covered core skills, literacy and numeracy, work discipline and attitudes. These checklists were used as structures for discussion with young people, and as a means to assessing needs and comparing them with provision. Assessment information came from the clients themselves, from the careers advisers' observations of behaviour (for example whether they appeared to have difficulties in filling in application forms or arriving on time) or from reports already held on the client. These checklists arose from three different contexts (New Deal Gateway, services to post-school teenagers and pupils within special schools) but were broadly similar. Scottish careers advisers involved in On Track (a supportive programme which works with young people prior to and after leaving school) had designed a similar scale which assessed young people's skills and needs in different contexts (e.g. when working with the On Track team or when operating in a whole school setting). These checklists were also intended to provide some evidence of "distance travelled" i.e. the extent to which young people had developed the hoped-for skills and behaviours.

One CSC had developed two approaches to assessing the needs of young people. The first was the use of the concept of the Johari window as part of careers guidance and self-assessment. The second was a technique to assess the quality of the young person's personal support network and to assess the young person's strengths and needs through consulting with the members of this network. These will be discussed in more detail in the section on good practice.

The use of the careers guidance interview to assess need

Often called the Vocational Guidance Interview (or VGI), a careers guidance interview was the most common approach to assessing young people's needs.

' Everyone uses the VGI as the main way of assessing need (in this company).'

As part of this research, internal company documentation was reviewed to try to identify a commonality in the purpose of, and approach to, a careers guidance interview. It was clear that its original purpose had been to assess career development needs: in skilled hands it also could recognise other needs, such as housing, social, family or educational ones. The documentation from most CSCs had retained this original focus in policy guidelines and recording systems, and some were anxious that the one-to-one interview was being asked to carry too much unsupported.

'Assessment is not really the purpose of a VGI. The aim is to make a decision. It may be possible to get young people to assess themselves. It may assess career development, maturity and realism. It'll maybe look a bit at assessing employability but it is not up-front. It may be implicit. The VGI can lead to poor practice when people are making lazy and inaccurate assessments.'

It seemed that some CSCs had neither thought through the role of a careers guidance interview in assessing needs (beyond careers guidance ones) nor considered the impact of decisions on how the results of a careers guidance interview were recorded on the content of it. An example of this would be where there were no clear guidelines for content and where recording systems had no heading that included family situation or health details.

Where CSCs had specialist assessment teams, there was often a clearer understanding about the difference between a mainstream "VGI" and an "assessment interview" that would cover a range of learning and support needs. Various attempts had been made to make the linkages between the two smoother. In one CSC, it had proved difficult to get young people who had already had some needs recognised during a careers guidance interview with a generic careers adviser to return for a second interview with a member of the assessment team. Therefore a decision had been taken to ensure that a member of the specialist assessment team was always available in the careers office to start the assessment process immediately after needs had been recognised. A similar problem in another CSC had resulted in a different decision: to train-up generic staff to be able to incorporate key elements of the assessment process into a mainstream careers guidance interview when a need was recognised.

The careers adviser's contribution to assessment

Our analysis of CSC respondents' comments on what careers advisers contributed to the assessment process showed that a key contribution was thought to be applying assessment information to the world of work. The knowledge of post-school routes, of the requirements of employers and the relevance of particular skills and attitudes to the work place were most commonly noted. The following statements were made in the context of the careers adviser's involvement in Future Needs Assessments and review meetings.

'Our tool is the expertise of careers advisers and the particular expertise they have is the perspective on the world beyond age 16.'

'The careers adviser pulls together a lot of other agencies' assessments and links all of them within the context of post-school education and the labour market and the availability of supported training. The assessments done by schools and educational psychologists are very education-focussed. The careers adviser can identify gaps in assessment and recommend best routes for individuals. The careers adviser also has a foot in a lot of camps, which is useful at transition points, and has links with more agencies than people think. The careers adviser is often the key agency in knowing what's out there for post school young people.'

The careers adviser's ability to "translate" educational assessment information into work-related contexts was thought to be valued across the full range of CSC clients.

'The careers adviser gathers assessment information in order to apply it to employability.'

'The careers adviser needs to standardise or moderate guidance teachers' subjective comments with a view to thinking about them after school.'

The assessment of employability was thought to be the main contribution made by careers advisers. In addition to interpreting the comments of others, careers advisers assessed employability through:

• listening to the statements made by young people;
• observing the extent to which young people kept appointments, arrived on time, co-operated with attempts to help and responded in an interview;
• adding to their synthesised picture of the client as young people were tried out in the workplace or training environment.

The question of the extent to which this can and does give an accurate picture of young people's needs will be discussed later.

The need to "translate" educational assessments into a work context was one of the reasons given by those who used basic skills assessments as part of a CSC assessment. The issue was that young people's literacy and numeracy skills needed to be assessed in the context of work, and this view was supported by a number of training providers in other fieldwork. For example, some young people might do poorly at number tasks in "S" grade, but the underlying reason might be a literacy problem which stopped them understanding the written description of the problem to be tackled. In the workplace, a supervisor who understood this could ensure that number tasks were explained orally, and literacy might be improved in terms of the words needed in that workplace.

Assessing medical and health needs

While all young people with recorded needs would have medical needs presented in some form to a Future Needs Assessment panel, there was otherwise no common practice in assessing the medical and health needs of school pupils. Historically the Careers Service had been alerted to the existence of a relevant medical condition by being sent either a Y9 or a Y10 form by the school medical service: the Y9 was for those with medical conditions which had more minor implications for work. Where the system had worked, these forms were generated following a contact between the pupil and the school medical/community health service at around age 14/15. At the time of this research, in around half of the CSCs neither Y9s nor Y10s were being produced. In the other half, experience was mixed. A small number received regular, but not comprehensive, batches of forms. Most, however, irregularly received completed Y9s or Y10s, or only received these when the careers adviser had recognised that a health issue was present and requested one.

Health issues were identified from one or more of the following:

• school reports;
• pupil questionnaires, in response to a specific request to note any relevant health issues;
• discussion in a careers guidance interview;
• local knowledge (in small communities);
• parents at parents evenings.

CSCs tried a number of approaches to accessing assessment information on support needs resulting from health issues. The Regional (or Consultant) Paediatrician was a useful contact in several areas. In others, the CSC met with the Senior School Medical Officer annually and careers advisers tried to build relationships with school doctors and nurses. Some reported that they had been able to involve the Employment Medical Advisory Service (EMAS) even although this organisation mainly dealt with post-school young people.

A number of barriers to access were identified. Firstly, there were difficulties arising from perceptions about confidentiality and expertise.

'There's been a recent court case where a parent took the Health Board to court for giving out medical information on their child. So now we get no information whatsoever formally. Doctors and nurses in schools say they will speak to parents and emphasise the value of disclosure, but in practice it's quite likely they'll forget.'

'Doctors won't pass any information on at all since they perceive that careers advisers tell people what they can't do and aren't competent with medical information.'

Secondly there were administrative and resource issues.

'Y9s are still produced, but not as many as before. But not all young people seem to see the doctor and if they miss the appointment there's no attempt to catch up with them.'

'Pupils are mostly dealt with by the school nurse and only by the doctor if it's an FNA.'

'Schools produce lists of young people who have medical issues. 15% have asthma, and maybe only 50% have nothing at all. Therefore the sheer volume of forms if they were completed would be enormous.'

For post-school young people, EMAS was comprehensively used, and for more complex assessments the occupational psychologist was accessed through the Employment Service's Disablement Employment Adviser.

Good practice

The many examples of good practice by CSCs and colleagues in other agencies and organisations have been incorporated into the following chapter, which draws together aspects of good practice from the research as a whole.

Key issues and recommendations

Where key issues identified by CSC respondents also arose in discussions with others involved in the research, these have been incorporated into Chapter 5. However, there were some which were specific to CSCs or to Careers Scotland, and these have been retained. Recommendations in this chapter have, however, also been incorporated into the full list emerging from the research

Key Issue 1: Recognition of need and transfer of information

The Careers Service task of identifying young people with learning and support needs was obviously much easier when their needs were recorded (although it seemed to be nonetheless the case that the actual assessment of need could still be problematic). Young people whose needs were not recorded could sometimes exhibit more complex problems than some with recorded needs. Categories of young people who were likely to be missed included those:

• receiving home tutoring because of medical conditions;
• referred to residential schooling by social work departments;
• looked-after;
• in alternatives to exclusion programmes, or otherwise out of mainstream provision;
• experiencing behavioural and motivational problems in school;
• dropping out of training provision or college courses (although this came over as less of an issue because CSCs were, on the whole, more focused on young people's initial transitions than their continuing ones).

A number of CSC respondents identified a difficulty in gathering information from other CSCs about young people in residential provision in another CSC area. While English CSCs appeared to have a binding concordat about mutual exchange of information across CSCs, the voluntary system currently in use in Scotland was viewed as ineffective in most areas.

The transfer of information from CSC to CSC when needs had been identified was not necessarily straightforward, either. This applied generally in Scotland, and was an example of how an attempt to introduce a protocol that would protect the confidentiality of the young person's details could actually cause increased difficulties in practice. Transfer of client details could only be done once the office holding the records had received a written request, counter-signed by the young person. The young client, therefore, had to visit the office in person to sign this document, but could not be given guidance or placing help until the client record was received some days later. This required a second visit to the careers office, and for some young people with chaotic lifestyles or poor motivation this was less likely to happen and contact with the client could be lost as a result.

Several CSC respondents were concerned that the assessment of need by others often did not involve careers advisers appropriately in some situations. These included the negotiation of Personal Learning Plans and Individualised Educational Programmes, attendance at school-based multi-agency meetings on the needs of particular individuals or social work reviews.

'The Careers Service is being missed out of the loop, Social Work, the Area Education Manager and the children's panel - together they identify the needs of young people, but they don't necessarily go to the Careers Service. Nor do schools pass on information to careers advisers since they want to focus on more able, good young people. There's a tension between giving the time to be sucked into social work and the competing demands within the school.'

On the other hand, as this quote suggests, there was recognition that CSC resources were also limited.

'It's impossible for a careers adviser to go to all the early intervention meetings, but there's no written report, and no verbal report and no referral system linked to these.'

Key Issue 1: Recommendations:

1. Careers Scotland should work with others to examine and improve systems for the identification of young people in residential schools outwith their home area, and for the internal transfer of assessment information on their needs.
2. Careers Scotland should examine the issue of transfer of assessment information within its own organisation as clients move around the country, bearing in mind the need for immediate response to the needs of particular client groups.
3. Strategies for early recognition and assessment of needs should recognise the potential contribution of all relevant practitioners. Where employability assessments or decisions about future career choices in education, training and work are to be made, other organisations and agencies should (as a minimum) identify individual young people to Careers Scotland staff and ensure transfer of information on their needs.

Key Issue 2: Assessment, guidance practice and provision

It was necessary to make it clear to CSC respondents that the research was not only looking at commercially-produced tools for assessment, but also at strategies for, and approaches to, assessment. But it was clear that a significant number of them thought initially about "assessment tools" as tests, conducted under formal, timed conditions. Where they reflected negative views about assessment from colleagues, it seemed that it was this image of assessment that was prevalent. This seemed to be partly because many were unaware of the extent to which commercial producers of assessments had moved on in their design of tools to reflect the needs of the client group recognised as key to the development of social inclusion. Many were unclear about the range of measures that might be used with those with social, emotional and behavioural needs. Our work on the digest of assessment tools showed that many existing tools were currently being piloted with a broad range of disaffected and challenging clients, and either the content or the administration of the tools (or both) were being adapted to make them more effective with the client group.

In discussing what assessment tools, whether commercially produced or home grown could do, many CSC respondents said they had 'heard that maybe' (a particular CSC) 'had tried something' but had no further details. It was clear that those interested in assessment and/or with a role in special needs had no forum for the exchange of good practice or the sharing of experiences since the Scottish group for special needs careers advisers had been disbanded. This clearly impacted on their knowledge of assessment practices.

Anxiety about the use of "assessment tools" has led, in our view, to an over-reliance on the standard careers guidance interview as a way of assessing need. The standard interview could be described as being capable of recognising a range of needs (including health, housing, social and family, offending, personal effectiveness and presentation, motivation and career development) but only capable of properly assessing career development needs. CSCs performed a different role with respect to career development needs than to other needs. This is because careers advisers could recognise career development needs, could assess career development needs using a range of strategies including questionnaires and interest guides and could also provide career development through guidance interventions. Those CSCs which at the time of the research had a specialist assessment team in place, used different terminology from those which did not. They spoke of "assessment" or "diagnostic" interviews and saw a difference between these and the traditional Vocational Guidance Interview (VGI). This was partly because they had a particular view of the nature of the client group and of the approach taken.

'Half of assessment is about building a relationship. Often getting a job is the last thing on young people's minds, it's not like what the school careers adviser does.'

Some school careers advisers might well dispute this comment!

Can an interview with a careers adviser be strengthened to include more assessment? Certainly there needs to be more thought given to what assessment evidence can realistically be gathered with the current level and type of contact.

How accurate are the assessments of need that result from a careers guidance interview? In some ways the answer to this question will depend on the expertise of the practitioner. But there is also an issue about the context of assessment. It has to be understood that no assessment is context-free.

'All assessment is within a context, and can be misinterpreted, for example, young people can show coping behaviours in another context like criminal behaviour though not in dealing with agencies for example the Careers Service (although some young people can be very skilled at this). It's important to understand the context for the young person.'

One good example of this is the frequency with which CSC respondents said they assessed motivation by whether young people attended interviews at the careers office. However, young people "not attending" may say more about their perceptions of the value of what the careers office has to offer them (or its relative importance compared to other things happening in their lives) than about personal motivation. One CSC had piloted the use of text messages with young people with chaotic lifestyles.

'We've been piloting text messaging as a way of maintaining contact with young people going through the assessment process. This involves young people in coming into the careers office at least three times and, in itself, this is part of the assessment process. Were they able to turn up and keep appointments? So the company is using observation as a measure of "soft" skills. A lot of young people who have chaotic lives have mobile phones, especially if they are homeless. The text messaging pilot was the result of a focus group with young people. They felt really threatened and pressurised by phone calls from the careers office and could end up saying something they didn't mean, for example, 'Yes, I'll come round tomorrow.' If they were handling text messages, they found they were more able to say 'Not sure' or 'Won't come'. Many young people said they would tear up official letters. One of the values of using text messaging is that you have to communicate in a peculiar mutual language. This is required by the lack of space, and is not threatening to the young person. It is on an equal level. The young person communicates using the same language back.'

This is a very good illustration of the way in which young people's behaviour may be interpreted differently if seen from a young person's perspective.

What might be done to enhance the assessment possible in an interview with a careers adviser? The research suggests that there are a number of informal "tools" that could be used to aid discussion without introducing testing into the interview. These could include questionnaires, card sorts, and visual prompts. Some of the aspects mentioned in the good practice section above might be introduced in a one-to-one interview, such as the Guidance Mapping Exercise or self-characterisation. Young people enjoy many of these activities and, guided by a competent professional, can see the point of them. Tools which synthesise the evidence to date, such as the Support Needs Matrix or some of the five-point scales intended to assess employability skills, can be helpful provided they take account of evidence across contexts, or recognise the limitations of evidence from only one context. However, it is possible that a guidance interview would also be enhanced by the inclusion of some of the less formal, more flexible commercially produced tools, and there were some examples of this happening.

Particular "tests" in particular situations will still be valuable, for example, basic skills assessments or aptitude batteries where there is little or no other evidence about a client's skills, or where the evidence is contradictory. But assessment tools that can be incorporated into a guidance interview would seem to be the most effective strategy. The representative of an English careers service company which has been involved in developing assessment approaches as part of the Connexions Service there commented:

'Careers advisers are so attached to the interview as a strategy! No matter what you do they'll still come back to interviewing, so it's only realistic to choose tools that can be incorporated into the guidance interview.'

This is not to devalue an interview. Most young people value one-to-one contact which is handled sensitively and professionally. The point is to find ways of strengthening its role in identifying learning and support needs.

The final element of this section is a consideration of the use of evidence from different contexts. With the exception of young people in special education, or perhaps with recorded needs, it could not be assumed that careers advisers would have access to reports on pupils' achievements and needs as assessed on work experience. This was partly because some careers guidance interviews took place prior to the young person going out on work experience.

'I would like to think that the careers adviser has work experience information, but the timing's often not right.'

Overall there was very little use of assessment information from Education for Work provision (for example work experience, enterprise activities or social and vocational studies) unless it was included in the guidance teacher's school report. But careers advisers saw their role as taking the evidence on young people in a school and "translating" it into employability terms. Many school-based assessments were often thought to be, perhaps inevitably, too focused on education.

'Personal Learning Plans at school only harness educational information.'

'There's the need for transition assessments beyond educational ones.'

Surely there is a need to base employability assessments (at least in part) on evidence from work-related activities?

There seemed to be much use of evidence on core skill achievement in a careers interview. This was partly because the evidence itself was not easily available to careers advisers. Endorsement forms for entry to supported Skillseekers programmes very rarely had a specific section that sought evidence on the need for core skill development. Are core skills a key part of employability? We have noted earlier that practical definitions of employability were unclear. Is employability the same as "job readiness"? Does "employability" vary depending on where a person lives? For example, it may be possible to live in an area with a buoyant local labour market and to enter work even though lacking the skills that would be needed in a local labour market which was in recession. Nevertheless, the Beattie Committee emphasised the importance of helping young people to understand the link between "soft" skills and employability (Paragraph 13.21).

In our discussions with practitioners, issues were raised about the link between assessment and provision. Some of this was based at a practical level.

'Because of the lack of opportunities (in this area) some (i.e. careers advisers not involved in the assessment team) say, 'What's the point of assessment if there's nothing for them to move into?' But if young people feel better about themselves, they may be more able to manage the situation they are in, although they may not be able to change it.'

This clearly depends on assessment being conducted in a positive way, not using a deficit model.

Some felt that assessment was almost entirely operating on a matching model.

'Assessment here is really dominated by provision. Can young people fit the provision or not? It's not based on adapting the provision to meet young people's needs.'

There was also evidence that some young people saw the assessment process as part of a matching process and geared their responses accordingly.

As part of the endorsement process, assessment had a clear link to funding, and some felt that this made quality particularly important.

'Because there's such a close link to funding, we've got to make sure the assessment is consistent.'

Definitions and purposes of assessment are discussed more fully in Chapter 5.

Key Issues 2: Recommendations

1. There would be value in raising the awareness of CSC staff of the range of commercially produced tools and of strategies and approaches that could enhance the interview as a method of assessment. Both training and ongoing support would encourage their use.
2. Within Careers Scotland and/or within the network of inclusiveness projects there should be a central forum for the exchange and sharing of good practice and experience. Such a group could also contribute to the development and review of policy, to the identification of the training needs of staff and to the sharing of training costs.
3. Definitions of "employability" need to be talked through and agreed. There should be more use of school evidence from Education for Work provision and from core skill achievement in the assessment of employability. Given that Careers Scotland will include both the careers services and education business partnerships, this would seem a possible role for the new organisation, in co-operation with local authorities.
4. There is a need for staff to be clearer about the difference between a vocational guidance interview and a diagnostic interview (i.e. which assesses needs other than career development ones). Both pre-service and in-service provision might assist this.

Key Issue 3: Policy and structural issues with regard to assessment

During the period of the research, staffing structures for delivering services to young people with special educational needs and special training needs were changing in a number of CSCs in order to integrate internal services more effectively in preparation for "inclusiveness" projects. Some CSC respondents noted the importance of being able to see the full spectrum of need:

'It's important to have generic delivery otherwise you can lose your sense of perspective and that impacts on the assessment of needs. Sometimes an ipsative assessment of a young person can be too positive, so it can be the careers adviser's role to provide a normative assessment against the workplace.'

'It's important that specialists take time out to do generic work otherwise they're not part of the whole team, and they lose touch with what is the "norm" and this is the key to assessment.'

Most noted the importance of a degree of specialism in working with young people with particularly complex or specialist needs, and for supporting generic staff.

The presence of a specialist assessment team also created challenges. Not only were there issues for the client about sensitive referral to and from the team, but there might be a tendency for those not in the team to think assessment was a specialist activity and not part of a careers adviser's normal work. Earlier in this chapter we noted different definitions of assessment. Is assessment for all? And is a specialist assessment team involved in specialist types of assessments rather than doing all the "assessment"? Is a common definition possible within the careers service?

Not only is there a link between assessment and provision of resources in other organisations but identification of client need is also linked to resourcing within CSCs. Some CSCs, and others in organisations which took part in case studies, were concerned that without careful identification of need by CSCs, the time and resources of careers advisers and their colleagues might be prioritised in unhelpful ways. This comment could be made from different perspectives

'Once Careers Scotland comes in, with the adult guidance service included, will its time be diverted away from young people with complex needs to adults?'

'Surely meeting the needs of "ordinary" young people is also important? If assessment's not part of a continuum how are their needs to be recognised?'

Definitions of assessment and of identification of need are key to decisions on priorities.

Within the context of school work CSCs were intending to make increased use of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) negotiations as a means of ensuring recognition (and if possible assessment) of needs, ideally at an early stage. However, the SLA and its negotiation process is already being asked to carry quite a heavy responsibility for the practical implementation of policy in schools, including prioritising within pupil caseloads. It is likely that Careers Scotland staff working in schools may need support from managers and trainers to ensure this is done as effectively as possible.

CSC respondents recognised a difficulty in building in client-centred assessments into guidance processes of a school. There were examples of good practice by schools, for example, where young people discussed with their guidance teacher the content of the school's report to the careers adviser in advance of a careers interview. However, for the majority of young people the first time they were consulted about, or had to sign an agreement releasing, information about them was when an endorsement form for supported training was being completed.

Key Issue 3: Recommendations

1. Careers Service Companies have already begun the process of internal restructuring to ensure integration of support services within each company (to a considerable degree as a result of the requirements for delivery of inclusiveness projects). Careers Scotland also has taken account of the need to ensure an appropriate balance between specialist and generic delivery. This process needs to continue, in the interests of coherent delivery of services to clients.
2. CSCs and Careers Scotland staff should seek to find a common philosophy on assessment and identification of needs, given its importance in prioritising work for the client group as a whole.
3. Support for Careers Scotland staff negotiating Service Level Agreements with school colleagues should be provided.

« Previous | Contents | Next »