The History of Career Counselling in Canada – A Year 2000 Project

By The Counselling Foundation of Canada

In the early days of a new century and a new millennium, many of us are caught up in the reflective mood sweeping our nation and the nations of the world.

The Counselling Foundation of Canada believes a historical snapshot of the career counselling community in Canada would be an appropriate “celebration” of the many achievements and the multitude of contributions made by individuals, agencies, organizations and institutions who have, over the last century, created the professional community to which we belong.

Towards this end, The Foundation has published a booklet and accompanying presentation kit “Career Counselling in Canada: A Coming of Age” for distribution and discussion at NATCON 2000. This booklet is a checkpoint along our pathway into the 21st century. A pathway which includes the release of a publication in the fall of 2000 and an accompanying video documentary on the history of the Career Counselling Community in Canada.

It is our hope that the booklet and presentation kit will set the stage for on-going documentary efforts to be completed during year 2000. More importantly, we hope Canadian Career Practitioners will accept our invitation to use the summary as a framework for reflection and discussion. And that they will enthusiastically accept the invitation to become actively involved in efforts to document our common history.

• We encourage you to make use of the Questionnaire and comment form contained in the presentation kit “Career Counselling in Canada: A Coming of Age”. You may obtain a copy from The Counselling Foundation by calling (416) 923-8953. There is no charge for the booklet. The questionnaire is also available online at www.contactpoint.ca.
• You can also visit www.contactpoint.ca and access “Historical Moments”. As well as reading about specific “moments” in our common history, we hope you will add your knowledge to our growing catalogue of historical facts.
• And we hope you will speak directly to the editorial, technical and creative production team working on the project, Kirkfoord Communications Inc. at NATCON. This team will be headquartered in Room 217 at NATCON on January 24th and 25th. You can drop off your questionnaire, leave other written comments that you may have or book an appointment to share your comments on camera.

We believe that the diversity and complexity of the Career Counselling Community in Canada makes your participation critical to the success of efforts to document and celebrate its history. Please accept the opportunity to share your experience and knowledge on some of the most memorable and exciting accomplishments of your colleagues past and present.

As we look back and reflect on the past, it serves to remind us of the challenges not yet met. Some of the challenges that may face Canadian Career Practitioners as they move forward as a growing profession have been identified by research efforts undertaken to date. For the most part, they focus on helping individuals weave together their personal, social and economic goals. Many more challenges are yet to be identified and articulated as this history project, Career Counselling in Canada A Coming of Age, evolves.

The Counselling Foundation of Canada, in the spirit of the furtherance of the Career Counselling Profession in Canada commits to assisting career practitioners tackle some of these challenges by earmarking funds for “Coming of Age” efforts.

Career Counselling in Canada

A Coming of Age

The 20th Century will be remembered for countless reasons. But how will the history books describe it? Will it be known as the Century of Flight? The Century of the Automobile? The Century of Space?… Television?… the Computer?… or the Century of World Wars?

Of course, it was all of these, as it was the century of a thousand things more.

Never before, in the history of humankind, has a hundred year period been as eventful as the one just ended. And for Canada’s career counselling community, itself a child of those hundred years, almost everything that occurred during them can be seen as a significant event in its process of maturation.

For if the 20th Century was the century of unprecedented developments, it has also been the century of changing work. Every innovation, every advance, virtually every significant event has affected the nature of work. Whether it was the advent of mass manufacturing, mass communications, information technology or nuclear arms, whenever something new appeared, it had an impact on jobs – on what people did, where they did it and how they did it. And for the Canadians whose job it is to counsel the workers who seek those jobs, it has meant continual changes in needs, changes in direction, and changes in understanding of what a “career” is even about.

A hundred years ago, the theory and practice of career counselling as we know it today did not exist. As the decades progressed, and the workplace transformed, the field has evolved from infancy through childhood and into adolescence. Now, with the hurdles and challenges of a new century looming before us, Canada’s career counselling community stands at a critical threshold.

It is a “coming of age.”

A time for the field to get to know itself and to gain strength in the knowledge of its past. This brief account of the evolving process of career counselling in Canada chronicles some of the people, events, and circumstances that forged this country’s newest “helping profession,” over the course of the century that redefined work.

Excerpt from: Career Counselling in Canada: A Coming of Age, written by KirkFoord Communications Inc., published by The Counselling Foundation of Canada, January 2000.