The development of evidence-based practice in guidance services in schools

To bring Erasmus+ as close as possible to the participants and make sure it works well across different countries, the EU works with National Agencies to manage the programme.

Their role involves not only selecting projects to be funded and monitoring and evaluating Erasmus+, but also sharing success stories and best practices and working with other National Agencies and the EU on particular themes.

In 2017-18, the Irish National Agency is hosting two thematic seminars promoting the development of evidence-based practice in guidance services in schools.

The seminars are aimed at policy makers, managers, and practitioners who have a role in leading, managing or delivering guidance services in schools.

The aim of the seminars is to develop a transnational resource which will facilitate Member States in developing evidence-based guidance practice and promote the use of digital technologies in contributing to the development of school guidance practices. The development of the transnational resource will be informed by good practice.

Evidence-based practice is informed by data gathering and analysis. It is envisaged that the resource will:

• Identify data gathering tools and methodologies – including online tools
• Present a set of questions relating to data gathering on inputs (funding, resources and staffing), process (guidance counselling activities) and outputs (student outcomes such as career management skills/competences) 
• Present a framework (online) for the data to be collected

The thematic seminars will build on and follow on from the work of the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network in relation to the Quality Assurance and Evidence-Base Framework and Designing and Implementing Policies Related to Career Management Skills. The seminars will also provide opportunities for linking in with career management skills/competence frameworks developed and implemented in a number of EU Member States.
 
At present Ireland is developing a career learning and development framework for schools. Follow the work of Ireland's National Centre for Guidance in Education.