In this post new member of the editorial board, Anne Delauzun, introduces herself and says a little about why she’s gotten involved.

 

I entered the careers profession at the end of 2011, having begun my career with a brief spell in the private sector, followed by a period working with not-for-profit arts organisations supporting the training and development of creative practitioners. On joining the largest higher education careers team in the UK, I soon felt right at home. Surrounded by knowledgeable colleagues, passionate about their work supporting university students and recent graduates, the role satisfied both my thirst for learning and my drive to help others.

I soon embarked on an MA in Careers Education, Information and Guidance, encountering many of the ‘big names’ whose work still informs much careers guidance practice today – from John Holland and Donald Super, to Bill Law and Tony Watts. I began to notice just how much individualistic ideas around occupational fit and rational career decision-making models held sway over our work, compared to the ‘bigger picture’, sociologically based theories. The former, it felt, was our comfort zone – it was easy to see how these ideas could be implemented in practice. Over time, I began managing a team, and learnt more about institutional politics, funding pots for different aspects of our work, league tables and much more. Being simultaneously a practitioner and manager often felt a complex line to tread; and exercise in managing competing values.

Towards the end of 2017, social injustices brought to light by the Grenfell Tower atrocity, and the emerging MeToo movement compelled me to explore career learning informed by social justice for my dissertation. With the encouragement of my tutor I got stuck into the literature and it wasn’t long before I found inspiration in the ideas of Tristram, Rie, Ronald and many others. The result was a piece of action research, involving my designing and delivering a piece of career development learning informed by theories of social justice. Engaging students in debate on the gender pay gap and the gig economy, I felt the political nature of careers work more acutely than ever. Keen to share my work, I presented at conferences and enjoyed talking to others who shared my interests in more radical, yet practical approaches to careers guidance.

So why am I doing this now?

It’s been almost two years since I first delivered the ‘I want to make a difference! Social justice and your career workshop’. Once again, I find myself with the sometimes-uncomfortable identity of careers practitioner and manager, working in a university challenged by the current circumstances.  We need a social justice informed approach to career guidance now more than ever, and we need practical, realistic, and effective ways to implement this. Volunteering to support this site, spread the word and grow the community is my way of making myself accountable to contribute to this effort. A motivation to keep a critically reflecting on my own work and challenging myself and my colleagues. A motivation to pull myself away from the micro level of day-to-day work and institutional challenges and seek out and share others innovative practice in this area. If this is something you’re doing, I’d love to hear from you.