Enabling Reflective Learning in Lifelong Career Guidance

This book is based on a fieldwork intensive, EU funded project, aimed at sustaining the empowerment processes of career guidance practitioners by developing their awareness and use of their individual, organizational and networking resources. The field work activity was carried out in three different national contexts: Italy, Bulgaria and Switzerland, and based on a creative methodological approach called Participative and Appreciative Action and Reflection (PAAR).

The contributions cover a wide range of intertwined subjects. These include (a) deep reflection on life long career guidance (LLCG) systems and processes in the three national contexts involved, (b) the challenges of managing PAAR projects in organisations (c) the role of a participative and appreciative approaches in facilitating a positive shift from professionals inside welfare state institutions, to a more counselling oriented mission (d) how to build up an appreciative memory that is a way of representing experience and creating space for relationships so that they remain stable over time (e) reflection on what may happen to learning processes if the contexts in which the empowerment practices are implemented happen through a virtual environment such as a blog or a social network. The Editors are all experienced researchers and practitioners working if the field of facilitation, life long career guidance, counselling, reflective learning and social innovation.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives.

Ruggiera Sarcina is a Senior Consultant, Facilitator and Researcher and Vice President of Reflective Learning Italy. Her main fields of expertise concern project management, action learning and facilitation techniques especially in the framework of European projects, small- and medium-sized enterprises (in particular, aggregation path for innovation and internationalisation projects) and local development.

Simona Marchi is the General Director of SMILE Italy (System, Methodology, Innovation, in Education) and President of Reflective Learning Italy, 2008-2012. Shee was a Temporary Researcher at Sapienza, University of Rome, Italy from 2001 to 2009 and has authored papers on research methods, reflective learning, participative change and innovation in organizations, learning by using web resources.

Furio Bednarz is President and Responsible for R&D by ECAP Foundation Switzerland and President of the Conference of CVT Organisation of Italian speaking Switzerland. His research focuses on labour market and workplace evolution, migrations, competence development and innovative training and experiential learning methods.

Massimo Tomassini is a Social Scientist and Mindfulness Trainer. Massimo is Contract Professor at the University of Roma 3, Italy (teaching organisational learning) and Associate Fellow at the Institute for Employment Research, University Warwick, UK. With the latter he is at present partner in a transnational research aimed at interpreting individual work and learning paths in different contexts. As a private consultant, he carries out both counseling activities and mindfulness training workshops for individuals and groups.

Galina Markova, PhD. is Director of Know How Centre for Alternative Care for Children at the New Bulgarian University. She graduated from the doctoral program of Smith College School for Social Work, USA and her research is in the field of child welfare and de-institutionalization of services for children, program evaluation in post-totalitarian context, international social work. She is also an Educator and Clinician in private practice

Francesco Consoli has been associated professor of Sociology of Organization, Sociology of Professions and Sociology of Innovation at the University of Rome "Sapienza", Italy. He has a long experience in reflexive practices and methodologies in teaching and training. In this field he published several articles and books on education and reflective practices. He participated in two Leonardo da Vinci Projects: 'Reflect' (2004-2006) and 'Reflect-OR' (2009-2010).