Counselor Training in Canada: An Alberta Approach

This article examines the initiatives of the Alberta/Northwest Territories Region of Employment and Immigration Canada in the implementation and continuing development of employment counselor training within the context of changing economic conditions and policy changes. Initiatives have included innovative group approaches, a program of competence maintenance and enhancement, and the development of an accountability framework for employment counseling. Future directions for training are also examined.     

The Client Action Plan Within Employment Counseling

The action plan development model introduced in this article describes the process recommended to assist clients who receive employment counseling through Canada Employment Centres or other agencies funded by the Human Resources Development Department. This specific decision-making process is established in the context of employment counseling assessment interviews illustrating how potential objectives are explored, prioritized, and translated into concrete and feasible activities that form a client's action plan.     

Employment Counselor Training and Professional Issues in the United States

Employment counseling as practiced during the past 30 years in the United States Employment Service (now Job Service) is discussed, including (a) the historical forces that affected employment counseling, (b) their consequences over this period of time, and (c) employment counseling training initiatives. The Competency-Based Employment Counselor Training Model is described, and more recent training initiatives are identified. The counselor credentialing process (particularly certification and licensure) is examined.     

Situational consistency in behavioral patterns of aggressive boys: Methodological considerations on observational measures

The issue of situational consistency is of great interest for early intervention with aggressive boys, but efforts to show behavior stability across settings have been unsuccessful to date, due principally to methodological problems. It is argued here that a more appropriate matching of response form, interaction partner, and situations should increase the situation consistency of observed behavior. The results support this proposition in that, more crosssetting behavior consistency was found in the pairing of situations where aggressive boys (age 6–7 years) were interacting with an adult female (mother/child versus baby-sitter/child) than in the pairing of situations where the boys were interacting with an adult male (mother/child versus father/child) or with the teacher in a nondyadic situation (classroom). The implications of using an extreme group are also discussed.This research program was funded by Le Conseil Québécois de la Recherche Sociale, the Quebec Government's FCAR research program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Ministry of Employment and Immigration, and the University of Montreal FDR program.     

Longitudinal effects of retirement on men's well-being and health

The National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience of Mature Men provided the opportunity to look at the effects of retirement on longitudinal well-being in a sample of men aged 54 to 69 in 1976. A conceptual model predicted that the decision to retire would affect subsequent well-being through the effect of retirement on such resources as income and health. The retirement decision in turn, was predicted to be a function of prior well-being and resources. Five categories of retirees were established: voluntary early age, voluntary normal age, health, mandatory, and discouraged. The analysis restricted the sample to men who were in the labor force at the 1976 interview, had not retired before that time, and who were interviewed in 1981. About half of the sample retired in the five years between interviews. Using several different measures of well-being, voluntary retirees were found to consider themselves better off than did other retirees or comparable men still working. Negative responses to retirement were concentrated among men who retired for health reasons, probably due to their continued ill-health. The effect of retirement on well-being seems highly related to the other circumstances (especially financial security and health) surrounding the individual, rather than to the event of retirement, per se.The research reported in this paper was conducted under a contract with the Employment and Training Administration, U. S. Department of Labor, under authority of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act. Researchers undertaking such projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to express their own judgements. Interpretations stated in this report do not necessarily represent the official position or policy of the U. S. Department of Labor. This paper was presented to the 92nd annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, August, 1984.     

U.S. Employment Service: First 50 Years, 1933–1983

This article reviews some of the landmarks and trends during the first 50 years of the U.S. Employment Service. It was originally written as the introductory chapter of a longer paper, “The Occupational Information Needs and Functions of the Employment Security-Job Service,” which was submitted at the request of the Occupational Coordinating Council, Washington, D.C., March 1980. The purpose of the chapter was to describe the role and functions of the Employment Service and to show how the service could become more relevant during an age of computerized employment service operations involving highspeed electronic communications and retrieval systems. Under the Reagan administration, much of the federal-state employment service has been systematically dismantled. The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) has been repealed and with it, large parts of the research, development, and counseling capacities have been wiped out. Only the great “supply side” depression of 1980–1983 saved the entire system from being demolished.     

Chinese immigrants in vancouver: Quo vadis?

This article reports findings from a study carried out in Vancouver that examined the settlement and adaptation experiences of Chinese immigrants. The findings reveal that non-economic reasons such as the environment, education, and citizenship constituted the primary motivations for Chinese immigrants to move to Canada. Employment and language facilities were the most frequently cited barriers inhibiting their integration into the Vancouver social and economic spheres. Their poor economic performances, coupled with the devaluation of both their acquired Chinese educational qualifications and labour market experience, have hindered integration and increased dissatisfaction with their lives in Canada. Given the logic of our posited triangular migration model, we argue that this dissatisfaction will encourage Chinese emigration from Vancouver. Cet article présente les conclusions d’une étude effectuée à Vancouver et portant sur l’établissement et ládaptation des immigrants chinois. Les réesultate indiquent que ce sont surtout des raisons non économiques - l’environnement, ’éducation et la citoyenneté - qui ont poussé les immigrants chinois á venir au Canada. Le marché du travail et les ressources linguistiques figuraient parmi les facteurs les plus souvent évoqués comme obstacles à leur intégration aux milieux sociaux et économiques de Vancouver. Leurs faibles rendements économiques, conjuguées à la dépréciation de leur scolorité et leurs expériences professionnelles chinoises, ont nui à leur intégration tout en augmentant leur insatisfaction face à leur vie au Canada. Suivant la logique qui sous-tend notre modèle triangulaire de migration, nous maintenons que cette insatisfaction poussera la population chinoise à émigrer de Vancouver.     

Article Characteristics,Content, and Authorship in the Journal of Employment Counseling

This article is an analysis of general journal and article characteristics, content, and authorship for volumes 1 through 15 of the Journal of Employment Counseling, covering the years 1964 through 1978. It attempts to determine to what extent and in what ways the membership of the National Employment Counselors Association (NECA) is served by the Journal. The average length of the journal and its articles are noted as well as the number of authors and references per article. Each article is reviewed for content classification, authorship, and the author's institutional affiliation. The basic facts and overall publication trends are identified and discussed. It is noted that only a small proportion of published articles concerned Employment Service counseling techniques. The data in this article was originally prepared for the graduate course entitled “Psychology 411: Professional Problems in Psychology” at the University of Missouri-Columbia.     

COUNSELING IN THE STATE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE

The place and importance of counseling in State Employment Services has, in many instances, not been recognized as a necessary function of the United States Training and Employment Service (USTES) by some local office managers as well as administrators. After discussing this matter with the counselors in the Halsted office, the following article was written not to justify the existence of counseling but hopefully to show its importance.     

AN INNOVATION IN THE PREPARATION OF COUNSELOR SUPERVISORS

Employment Service counselor supervisors were prepared at Indiana University under a contract with the Indiana State Bureau of Employment Security. Our campus program was a combination of didactic and practicum courses. The off campus program consisted of visitation by faculty members to the local offices of the enrollees and involved consulting with the office staff as well as the enrollee. Reaction to the program by total office staffs was favorable.     

Addiction Severity Index Recent and Lifetime summary indexes based on nonparametric item response theory methods

Baseline Addiction Severity Index (5th ed.; ASI-5) data of 2,142 substance abuse patients were analyzed with two nonparametric item response theory (NIRT) methods: Mokken scaling and conditional covariance techniques. Nine reliable and dimensionally homogeneous Recent Problem indexes emerged in the ASI-5's seven areas, including two each in the Employment/Support and Family/Social Relationships areas. Lifetime Problem indexes were derived for five of the areas--Medical, Drug, Alcohol, Legal, and Psychiatric--but not for the Employment/Support and Family/Social Relationships areas. Correlational analyses conducted on a subsample of 586 patients revealed the indexes for the seven areas to be largely independent. At least moderate correlations were obtained between the Recent and Lifetime indexes within each area where both existed. Concurrent validity analyses conducted on this same subsample found meaningful relationships, except for the Employment/Support area. NIRT-based methods were able to add to findings produced previously by classical psychometric methods and appear to offer promise for the psychometric analysis of complex, mixed-format instruments such as the ASI-5.     

Validity of USES Aptitude Test Batteries for Predicting MDTA Training Success

As a result of the continuing Federal-State cooperative test research program in the Employment Service, aptitude test batteries for a large number of specific occupations have been developed. These test batteries are in daily use by Employment Service counselors of candidates for training programs established under the Manpower Development and Training Act (MDTA) of 1962. To what extent are these test batteries predictive of success of enrollees in MDTA courses? This article summarizes the available evidence on this question, based on data for 875 MDTA trainees in 12 courses. In 10 of the 12 samples the operational test norms showed significant cross validity.     

Gender Differences in Employment and Salaries of Psychologists Within Medical School Settings

A survey of 3,894 psychologists employed within medical schools and academic health centers was conducted in 1997 by the Research Office of the American Psychological Association (APA) in collaboration with the Association of Medical School Psychologists (AMSP). This survey, published as the 1997 Employment Characteristics and Salaries of Medical School Psychologists, included inquiries about various aspects of employment (e.g., academic rank, tenure status, employment activities, appointment characteristics, department affiliations, demographic characteristics) and earnings. Employment characteristics and salary information were compared by gender. The findings indicated that men had more favorable employment circumstances and higher base salaries than their female counterparts. These differences existed across all academic ranks and were found at each level of experience. This article discusses these findings and their implications.     

Integrating fieldwork into employment counseling for methadone‐treatment patients

An innovative employment counseling model, Customized Employment Supports, was developed for methadone‐treatment patients, a population with historically low employment rates. The effectiveness of a key component of the model, “vocational fieldwork,” the delivery of services in the community rather than only within the clinic, was assessed through a quasi‐experimental study of the first 55 patients receiving the model in 2 clinics. Employment outcomes after 6 months were compared between patients who received vocational fieldwork (n = 18) and those who did not (n = 37). Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that patients receiving vocational fieldwork had significantly better outcomes for competitive work, informal work, and any paid work.     

PEP: An Enabling Program for CETA-zen Employment

The “Personal Employment Program” (PEP) is a 4 week training and development experience that enables CETA participants to secure unsubsidized employment.