Career Counseling Workshops for Hispanic High School Students Term Paper

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Career Counseling Workshop for a Hispanic Population

PowerPoint Introduction

Two-Day Career Counseling Workshop for All School District Hispanic Students!

Location

Aaronson Auditorium, 9:00 A.M. -- 3:00 P.M., January 5 and 6, 2015

Refreshments

Bottled water, soft drinks and doughnuts will be available

Workshop Goals

Identify and assess your skills, interests, and abilities

Identify potential career opportunities

Establish career and education goals

Workshop Agenda

Monday, January 5, 2015

a.m.

Welcome and orientation by Mr. Jackson, vice principal

Overview and importance of career counseling and its goals by Ms. Leslie,

career counselor

30 a.m.

Break

11:30 a.m.

Self-assessment: Using the Briggs-Meyer self-assessment and developing an inventory of interests, values and skills, part one, by Mrs. West, career counselor

11:30 -- 12:30 P.M.

Lunch -- school cafeteria

12:30 -- 1:30 P.M.

Self-assessment: Developing an inventory of interests, values and skills, part two, by Mrs. West, career counselor

1:30 -- 2:15 P.M.

Career exploration: Learning about job opportunities and employment resources such as the National Career Development Association

(http://ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sp/home_page) and the National Career

Development Guidelines (http://acrn.ovae.org/ncdg.htm) by Ms. Leslie,

career counselor

2:15 -- 2:30 P.M.

Break

2:30 -- 3:00 P.M.

Questions and answers: Mrs. West and Ms. Leslie, career counselors

Day Two: January 6, 2015

9:00 -- 10:30 A.M.

Making decisions: counselors help students narrow down options and create a career plan by Mrs. West and Ms. Leslie, career counselors

10:30 -- 10:45 A.M.

Break

10:45 -- 11:30 A.M.

Setting goals: counselors help students learn how to set target dates for completion of their career goals, including education and training requirements, and learn how to evaluate their progress toward meeting their career goals, making adjustments if necessary

11:30 -- 12:30 P.M.

Lunch -- school cafeteria

12:30 -- 1:30 P.M.

Review of current hot career fields for Hispanics by Mr. Phillips, school district human resources director

1:30 -- 2:30 P.M.

Summary: Importance of career planning during high school, Mrs. West,

career counselor

Part Two:

Why is Career Planning Important for Hispanic Students?

Today, the need for timely and informative career counseling for Hispanic high school students has never been greater. Indeed, Hispanics are the youngest, largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States today (Zalaquett & Baez, 2012). Current estimates of the growth of the Hispanic population in the U.S. indicate that this group will become an increasingly important segment of the American workforce in the foreseeable future (Zalaquett & Baez, 2012). According to Zalaquett and Baez, though, "Their career paths seem to be non-linear or non-traditional and they may not be aware of or use career counseling services. Their progress and contributions to our society can be enhanced by providing career counseling" (2012, p. 58).

Unfortunately, the majority of the research to date concerning career counseling and Hispanics has been based on stereotypical perceptions and anecdotal accounts rather than hard evidence (Zalaquett & Baez, 2012). In this regard, Kolodinsky and Schroder emphasize that, "Career development at the [adolescent] stage may have long been constrained by biases in the dominant culture via, for example, perceptions of the meaning and implications of gender, ethnicity, and economic station" (2009, p. 163). In addition, there are other constraints to career counseling that are specific to Hispanic students, including (a) the definition of the role of the Hispanic helper, (b) the degree to which the student identifies with Hispanic culture, (c) the other roles that the student plays, and (d) an understanding of the importance of family in Hispanic culture (Nelson & Jackson, 2007, p. 3).

Despite their growing representation and importance in the American workforce, Hispanics lag behind all other minority groups in the United States in terms of educational achievement. Almost 50% of Hispanic high students drop out of high school, a rate that is twice as high as the drop-out rate for African-Americans and three times higher than the rate for white high school students (Dunn & Griggs, 1999). According to Dunn and Griggs, "These statistics negatively affect the Hispanic's occupational choices and contribute to the lack of Hispanic role models in such professions as engineering, physics, computer technology, and higher education, all of which require an education" (1999, p. 50).

Therefore, it is vitally important for career counselors to develop the cross-cultural competencies needed to provide minority groups such as Hispanic students with career counseling guidance that is culturally sensitive. In this regard, Watkins and Campbell (2000) report that, "Value differences have import for the way in which people make life decisions.

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In counseling and assessment, it is important to avoid automatic assumptions about what is 'best' without incorporating into that consideration the culturally-specific values held by the individual" (p. 507). Some especially salient value differences for Hispanic students involve the importance of family, living harmoniously with nature, living in the present, placing an emphasis on being rather than doing, and the subordination of individual to group goals (Watkins & Campbell, 2000).

In fact, commitment to family is among the most important value in many Hispanic cultures. According to Dunn and Griggs (1999), "That commitment includes a loyalty to the family, a strong family support system, the sense that adolescent behavior reflects on the honor of the family, hierarchical order among siblings, and a duty to care for members who are disabled, infirm, or aged" (p. 49). It is important to note that this value places many Hispanic students at odds with the mainstream American culture that places a high value on individualism (Dunn & Griggs, 1999). Indeed, these cross-cultural differences can even have an adverse impact on academic performance among Hispanic high school students. In this regard, Dunn and Griggs add that, "Their culture's emphasis on cooperation in the attainment of goals can result in Hispanic adolescents' discomfort with this nation's conventional classroom competition" (1999, p. 49).

In addition, a majority of Hispanic high school students are inclined to follow their parents' occupational choices without taking into account other potential career possibilities (Dunn & Griggs, 1999).

In fact, in far too many cases, career counseling services have simply not been available for Hispanic students in the United States in recent years or, if they have been available, they have lacked the cross-cultural awareness needed to counsel this population appropriately (Lee, 2012). In this regard, Lee emphasizes that, "If counselors are to have an impact on the career development of increasingly diverse client groups, then their practice must be grounded in cultural competency" (p. 4). Developing cross-cultural competency represents an essential element in the personal and professional growth of career counselors that involves acquiring the appropriate knowledge and skills required to provide effective career counseling services to Hispanic students (Lee, 2012).

There are a number of reasons for conducting a career counseling workshop for high school students in general and Hispanic high school students in particular. For instance, Kolodinsky and Schroder (2009) cite the following desirable outcomes as being achievable through career counseling workshops:

The broadening and/or clarification of students' career interests, and,

The enhancement of students' sense of self-efficacy with respect to their careers of interest.

Likewise, the National Career Development Guidelines indicate that timely career counseling services can provide a number of valuable outcomes for students, including the following:

Help students acquire skills they'll need to transition successfully to postsecondary training or a job after high school;

Help students achieve more by linking classroom study to future choices; and,

Help students acquire new skills and move through career transitions (The National Career Development Guidelines, 2014, para. 2).

These desirable outcomes are highly congruent with the guidance provided by Nelson and Jackson (2007) who report that a fundamental goal of career counseling is to promote professional career identity among students. According to Nelson and Jackson, "To facilitate this process, counselor educators strive to provide programs that allow students to find new ways of viewing the world, the profession, themselves, and others" (2007, p. 3). In some cases, young people may be simply unaware of the vast array of career opportunities that are available to them, while in other cases the viability of certain professional career paths may not have occurred to them because of a paucity of role models or prevalence of the occupational fields within a minority group.

As Kolodinksy and Schroder (2009) point out, though, there also remains a dearth of timely and relevant research concerning the most efficacious approach to presenting career counseling workshops in general and for Hispanic students in particular. For instance, Kolodinsky and Schroder note that, "Career counselors seeking to positively impact the occupational self-efficacy of youth, especially minority adolescents, stand to benefit from more clarity about the effectiveness of the career workshop as an impactful intervention" (2009, p. 163).

Notwithstanding these gaps in the existing body of knowledge concerning the need and effectiveness of career counseling for Hispanic students, there has been some research in this area that has documented the importance of the career counseling.....

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