OSCA/ACOSO is pleased to offer Additional Qualifications Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (Specialist)  for Guidance and Career Education this winter! 

Taught by a current Guidance-Teacher Counsellor in an Ontario school, these courses use an online virtual classroom setting, making the courses accessible for all. These courses outline all the necessary practices for delivery of a comprehensive Guidance and Career Education program for your school. There is no textbook in any of these courses. Each registrant receives the current copy of OSCA's Ethical Guidelines and a one year AQ student subscription to OSCA/ACOSO. 

Course dates : NEW start date is January 12th to March 30th.

Cost: $650.  
Please visit the rolling banner, on OSCA's website to register at www.osca.ca.  Please note, a person may take one part per session.  Courses run pending enrollment.

CERIC is a charitable organization that advances education and research in career counselling and career development. In addition to hosting Cannexus, Canada’s largest bilingual Career Development Conference, CERIC also:

• funds projects to develop innovative resources that build the knowledge and skills of diverse career professionals
• publishes the country’s only peer-reviewed journal, Canadian Journal of Career Development;
• runs the CareerWise / OrientAction websites.

Mark Your Calendars: Please plan to join us for Cannexus at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa, Canada:

January 27-29, 2020

Register now for the annual conference

As you refresh yourselves over the holidays, we hope that you can remember to protect your own wellness and wellbeing. Dr. Astrid Kendrick states in her article "Love, Heartbreak, and Teacher Emotional Well-being: Protecting the 'heartwork' of teaching" that stakeholders, such as parents, educational assistants, teachers, school administrators, and system leaders, can all play a role in promoting emotional health within the school system. Simply recognizing that providing emotional labour is a part of educator professionalism is a first step. The ethical next step is to find ways to ensure that when educators have provided intense emotional labour, they are provided with a safe place during their work day – through uninterrupted time, in a physical location, or with a trusted friend – to release their emotions in a healthy manner.

Her research has shown that educators have had several suggestions that could be implemented in school settings, many of which involve small, cheap tweaks to the work day:

• More breaks, less emails, less demanding extracurriculars: we are spread too thin. We are getting away from actually being present and focused on our students.
• Reduce the workload, increase opportunities for teachers to have calm in their day.
• Class sizes (especially given the increasing diversity of our population) need to be reduced. Special needs students need to be supported.
• Respect teacher transition time… Allow the teacher a few minutes before the next class comes in.
• Ensure each staff member has a defined break period each day. Reduce expectations during break times so that breaks are actually breaks. Don’t organize so many meetings; give teachers the time they need to prep and decompress.
• Offer activity and sport opportunities for staff during the work day and/or on non-instructional days. Create a staff work-out space.
• Increase supports for teachers who are struggling mentally.
• Carefully team up teachers to create support systems.
• Create a Zen room that teachers can go to.
• Say thank you and recognize successes.
• We need a strong champion for teachers in the media.

For the complete article, read more here. 

Canada frequently ranks as the most-educated country in the world, and yet we are pretty pessimistic about what the future of work holds — at least for us humans. In a 2018 survey, nearly 60 per cent of participants stated that they believe this whole smart-robot-thing will lead to massive unemployment, and 40 per cent are certain their current job will disappear within the decade. But will it be as grim as that?

Matthias Oschinski, an economist and head of the MaRS data and analytics team, is far more bullish about the coming Fourth Industrial Revolution, and he predicts that job opportunities will actually defang the disruption. It’s reassuring to note that despite the U.S.’s continual pioneering of disruptive technology, the country is seeing historically low levels of unemployment. In fact, many watchers even suggest that AI will be the greatest job engine in history. And while jobs will be lost, new ones will be created entirely. A stock broker might become a social entrepreneur; an HR expert might move into man-machine team management.

So, how to prepare for this coming tide? "For me, the best way to empower at-risk workers is to provide them with better information and more choices,” Matthias says. "That’s how you make strong economic decisions — for yourself and for society.”

Read the entire article here

Conestoga College is accepting applications for our tuition-free Pre-Apprenticeship Training program. Funded by the Government of Canada, the program will prepare students for in-demand careers and will provide a head start for those wishing to achieve apprenticeship certification.

Welder/ Metal Fabricator

Waterloo campus

Starting April 2020

 

Starting in April 2020, the Pre-Apprenticeship Welder/ Metal Fabricator program will be offered at Conestoga's Waterloo campus and runs full-time during the day for 25 weeks. This program includes multiple trade exposure with Welder and Metal Fabricator, common core Level 1 apprenticeship in-class training and features an additional eight-week practical work placement experience.

Information sessions will be held at the Waterloo campus, and all potential candidates must attend one information session. Here are all the details.

OSCA/ACOSO has recently come across the work of a careers expert presenter that our readership may find interesting. Join Tristan Hooley as he discusses "the most interesting presentations that I've given in 2019." In his articles, he seeks to discuss questions like, "Should decent work be an aim of career guidance?" and "Are the robots taking over?" His blog seeks to inform on issues such as understanding career leadership and what we should know about the graduate labour market.

Category
Contribution to Guidance and Career Education

When to Apply
Nominations for this certificate may be accepted all year long.

History
The Award of Merit was first presented in the spring of 1972. In 1977 the OSCA Board of Directors passed a resolution to rename this award The Olive Diefenbaker Award of Merit to honour the late Mrs. Diefenbaker''s contribution to Guidance and Counselling in the Province of Ontario. The first awards were presented by her daughter during the 1977 Annual Conference at Niagara Falls in November. The citation on The Olive Diefenbaker Award of Merit reads: "In recognition of long and dedicated service to guidance and counselling in the Province of Ontario"

This award is to recognize retiring individuals who have made a contribution to the Counselling and Guidance Profession in Ontario

Criteria
This award may be presented to teacher-counsellors, teachers, administrators, trustees and/or members of the community

An OSCA member must nominate the retiree

The nominee should:

• Be retiring
• Have been involved in Guidance and Career Education in Ontario for a minimum of five years.
• Have demonstrated leadership in guidance through active participation in professional development, counsellor education, administrative support, promotion of guidance, professional writing, research, or in contributing to professional guidance and counselling organizations.

The awards will be mailed to the nominator for presentation by the nominator or by another OSCA member appointed by the nominator. These awards are often presented at retirement functions rather than the Awards Banquet. However, the names of the recipients of The Olive Diefenbaker Awards may be noted in the official program of the OSCA Conference.

Procedure

• Nominations for this award must be submitted by an OSCA member
• Nominations should be received six weeks in advance of the presentation date in order for sufficient timing for certificate arrival .

Nominate a retiring colleague.