Dr Emma Bolger

I have made an English language translation  available of this article written by Uuganaa Ramsay and I, which was commissioned by Skills Norway and published on 28 August 2020. You can access it here .  The original article remains online and is available in Norwegian here .

An article on unconscious bias and white privilege in career guidance practice, co-authored by Uuganaa Ramsay and, I has been published today by Skills Norway and is available here:  https://veilederforum.no/artikler/praksis/ubevisste-fordommer-og-hvite-privilegier-i-karriereveiledning?fbclid=IwAR0XioK7v8AVK5xmCoOIGBehrr91m_tpfidJF5loYci6rp82H_C3u0zG74E

This month will see the publication (in translation) of an article I have written in collaboration with Uuganaa Ramsay , on the importance of addressing unconscious bias and white privilege in career guidance practice, for Skills Norway . In addition we will be delivering a webinar  on this topic on 27th August, for the same organisation.  We will be sharing our work more widely in coming months. Students on the Postgraduate Diploma in Career Guidance and Development at UWS can also look forward to seeing more in relation to race-aware career practice in their learning this year, as we focus on what we can do as a sector to address racism in our society. 

Further to an earlier announcement about another EE post, I'm very pleased to announce I have also been appointed external examiner for the MA in Career Guidance and Development at @HudUniCGD Looking forward to working with the excellent @Jodielou23 and her team. — Emma Bolger 🌈 (@bolger_emma) July 24, 2020

Thanks to some excellent suggestions from students who have recently completed their Career Development Institute Qualification in Career Development professional reports with us at UWS, I've been able to add 5 new OERs to my list of Open Educational Resources for Career Development and CareerDevelopment Professionals . This takes the total to 27 free, open, online resources for you and your clients! Many thanks to Pritpal Kalsi, Laurence Hansen, Elsa Olaru and Cliona McMenamin for their contributions!

Long overdue, in my opinion, but our national skills and careers services in the UK have launched new portals that collate and promote OERs for skills development. Skills Development Scotland have launched a Free Online Courses portal: https://www.myworldofwork.co.uk/learn-and-train/find-free-online-courses The National Careers Service (England) has launched The Skills Toolkit: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/find-a-course/the-skills-toolkit If you are a career development professional and you complete any courses that you find useful for your self or for your clients, let me know and I will add to the  OERs for Career Development page on my website (if they aren't already listed there!). Note that as I am based in the UK, I post resources that are UK-orientated. Some of the courses listed via the portals above may be targeted at a non-UK audience, so always try them out before recommending!

I'm very pleased to announce I have been appointed external examiner for the MA in Careers Education and Coaching at the University of Derby, where @nickimoore1 and @Tomstaunton84 run an excellent postgraduate programme. Looking forward to working with you over the coming years! — Emma Bolger 🌈 (@bolger_emma) April 23, 2020

I have recorded a video presentation that gives an overview of how we deliver the MSc Career Guidance and Development at the University of the West of Scotland. This is adapted from a "Learning and Teaching Dialogue" I delivered for the university previously. You can watch it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqx21kBARhM

This year's CDI Student Conference England has been moved online , due to the COVID-19 restrictions in place across the UK, and globally. I hope all followers of my blog/website are keeping healthy and well at this challenging time. I have recorded a video commentary of my keynote, which addresses the topic of unconscious bias for career development professionals. This will shortly be made available on the CDI website at the page linked above and is also available  directly via Loom, at:  https://www.loom.com/share/6ffdd9c459e74ff4bbfab6203d47c360 Title slide for keynote

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been discussing the possible impact of COVID19 restrictions with those working in our sector, colleagues and fellow careers-researchers. We know that what we are facing at a local, national and global level will have a huge impact on all of our careers – in our working, learning and personal lives. What we are going through right now will bring huge changes to the work we do and the way we do it. It may change how we value certain roles. It may mean the things we planned to do with our lives change drastically. There will be people who feel the immediate impacts of the coronavirus restrictions far more acutely than others. More widely we need to consider the impact of the current situation on those around us. This is not a competition as to who is in most peril or which group is “entitled” to most help. Every situation is different. We must support others.  Work is a huge part of our lives. Work is money, and so much more. Work is what we...

At this week's Career Guidance and Development CPD Conference Scotland, I presented, for the first time, my work to date on domestic abuse and career guidance practice. Firstly, thank you to everyone who, despite it being the last workshop of the day, stayed to fill the room and engage with the topic. I think this demonstrates how permeating this topic is. As I said in my presentation 1-in-4 people will encounter domestic abuse in their lifetime, this includes all of us, practitioners and clients alike. The slides I used are available at the link below and include links to sources of support here in Scotland: https://thecdi.net/write/Events/Presentations/Scottish%20CPD/2020_Workshop_Emma_Bolger.pdf Domestic abuse can affect anyone regardless of gender, sexual orientation, age, or any other characteristic or background demographics and to see a diverse audience in attendance was heartening. The discussion was loud! I don’t think I have ever observed a conference works...

We will be hosting the Career Guidance and Development  CPD Conference Scotland at UWS next week, and as ever have been focusing on accessibility, inclusion and thoughtful design as we plan and deliver this new format conference. The event builds on and amalgamates the CDI Student Conference Scotland with the UWS/ENU/SDS Research Symposium and in addition offers a broad CPD opportunity for selected practitioners in the sector in Scotland. This conference is designed to highlight the latest developments in the sector and is presented by a range of expert keynote speakers and workshop presenters all of whom are leaders in their field. The keynotes and workshops are focused on issues of equality, diversity and inclusion in the careers sector. The final version of the conference programme is available here  (note that workshop rooms will be advised on the day). Our audience will be students undertaking postgraduate studies in career guidance and development in Sco...

A particularly flexible and valuable form of ongoing CPD is to undertake learning via Open Educational Resources, or OERs. These are free or 'open' online learning resources. Popular OER sites include:  FutureLearn OpenLearn edx Coursera   OERu I provide a list of relevant OERs to students on the UWS MSc Career Guidance and Development programme  but it makes sense to present an expanded and contextualised list publicly. In this blog post, you will find a list of currently available resources, and a brief description of why each is useful and relevant to our field. If you have completed any of these OERs or others as part of your flexible work related learning, please post your feedback in the comments section of this post. If there are other OERs you recommend, please contact me and I will add them to the Resources page on this website. OpenLearn: Thinking about how I work with other professionals Note that while this course focuses on early years practition...