What’s New
Contact Point Celebrates 10 Years
In 1997, Contact Point was launched at a national conference sponsored by The Counselling Foundation of Canada. It was the first website of its kind to offer a unique online space for interaction and networking among career professionals across Canada, as well as provide relevant information, professional development opportunities and resources. At the time, Contact Point offered a beacon of opportunity – to connect individuals from many different regions of the country, to assist practitioners in staying current and up-to-date, and to raise the profile of the career counseling/career development field. One Contact Point supporter commented that
“Contact Point will go a long way to help bring together career counsellors … I believe something as basic as a professional looking web site helps raise the collective self esteem of the Career Counsellors who use it …The bottom line is that Contact Point will be an important vehicle to advance both the profession in general, and the quality of service it provides to the public.”
Now, 10 years later, Contact Point remains an integral component of the career counselling field in Canada. One user stated that
“Contact Point has become very important …as it stays consistent. So many online resources come and go.”
Practitioners who have used the site since the beginning continue to return to access new articles, information, and resources. Another Contact Point user summarized their experience by saying
“I have used it since the beginning and have never been disappointed, always find something of value every time I access the site!”
Contact Point has continued to grow in usership and content – the online Bulletin newsletter is now sent to over 5500 subscribers and features articles and information based on topics suggested by Contact Point survey respondents. Furthermore, Contact Point continues to support practitioners in the field by providing them with the tools they need to assist their clients and do their jobs better. One practitioner commented that
“Contact Point makes me feel more connected to my industry and my peers. I feel empowered as a career developer after reading/participating on your site.”
Through the years, Contact Point has also endeavoured to work with many organizations and has established several successful partnerships. In 2002, Contact Point and Société GRICS collaborated on the development of OrientAction, a website dedicated to providing career counselling/career development articles and information in French. More recently, Contact Point has partnered with CERIC (the Canadian Education and Research Institute for Counselling) and is pleased to once again be a part of national conference sponsored by the Counselling Foundation of Canada, the CANNEXUS conference taking place in April.
One of the key elements of Contact Point’s ongoing success has been the people who remain dedicated and committed to the organization. Contact Point would like to extend a very special thank you to The Counselling Foundation of Canada for their continued support. We would also like to thank our Board of Directors and all of the volunteers over the years who have offered their time, experience, and expertise to ensure that Contact Point remains a valuable and important entity in the career counselling/career development community. Finally, we would like to acknowledge all of the users who continue to visit and utilize the website.
Please stay tuned to the website for several special initiatives to celebrate this important occasion.
The Survey Results Are In!
In collaboration with our french language site OrientAction, we developed a survey with questions that focused on several areas including demographic and background information of respondents (sector, geographic location, job function); professional needs of career professionals; and practitioners’ familiarity and use of technology resources and tools such as researching information on the Internet, participating in online discussion groups, purchasing resources or products online, and participation in online courses or professional development activities.
Again this year, we asked respondents to provide suggestions for topics they would like to see covered on Contact Point and OrientAction. These responses will be used to develop topics and themes for upcoming issues of our newsletters. Readers will find a list of upcoming themes featured in the spring issue of the newsletter which is due out in April. We would like to extend a special thank you to all survey respondents who took the time to fill out the questionnaire and provide their feedback.
Finally, we would also like to congratulate our survey winners:
$100 Chapters or Renaud-Bray Gift Certificate Judith Thomas
Toronto, ONRoberta L. Mason
Victoria, BC$25 Chapters or Renaud-Bray Gift Certificate Anne Gillis
Charlottetown, PEITyna Beriault
Montreal, QCDave Moore
Peterborough, ONAllan Revich
Toronto, ONAntoine Roy
Gatineau, QCRead the survey results here.
Are You Interested in Reading Articles in French?
Don’t miss the last issue of the OrientAction Bulletin!The fall edition of the OrientAction Bulletin includes articles on a variety of subjects with a special attention to the evolution of our field:
- Looking for a new concept of guidance and career counselling adapted to our time
- Are career counsellors in a professional development process?
- Online Assessment: TIP, a test about interests related to work and personality
- Tool Review: A collection of self-assessments and activities for students
- Share your expertise by submitting an article for the OrientAction Bulletin
Please visit www.orientaction.ca/bulletins/v3-n3/v3-n3.html to view the newsletter.