This project piloted the development of a network for guidance and counselling, supported by ICT, to strengthen the evidence base for practice (and therefore its impact) by integrating relevant research with practice. It is also piloting a new approach to co-operation amongst key stake-holders in the field, including policy makers and practitioners, by presenting new opportunities to link knowledge-based systems across Europe. The project had a particular focus on equal opportunities because of existing problems of lack of co-ordinated and wide-ranging materials for guidance and counselling. The objectives of the project were to:

• develop an innovative and imaginative way of linking processes of knowledge acquisition, development, transformation and creation with approaches to tackling the core problems of counselling and guidance practice;
• facilitate, by establishing a network supported by ICT, interactive and focused knowledge sharing and transformation for practitioners, managers, researchers, trainers, students, policy makers, and others, as collaborative participants in a dynamic community of practice;
• examine the ways in which learning to practise guidance and counselling is created and shared (beliefs, concepts, ideas, theories, actions) in the search for new understandings about effective guidance.

The formation and operation of the network (comprised practitioners, managers, researchers, trainers, students and policy makers, together with others in related fields) was supported by the development and implementation of a ‘European Guidance and Counselling Research Forum’ website, specially designed to support collaborative participation in a dynamic community of practice for guidance and counselling.

The five partner countries (UK, Denmark, Finland, Greece and Slovenia) organised expert groups to inform the structure and content of the website. Key materials and resrouces were made available through the website and key materials were translated into English and included on the transnational section of the website.

Project duration: 2004 - 2007

IER project team:

Jenny Bimrose

Alan Brown

Sally-Anne Barnes

Lucy Marris

Project partners:

Valerija Cucek, Kadis, Slovenia

Deirdre Hughes, Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby

Mike Malloch, Knownet

Peter Plant, Danish University of Education

Despina Sidiropoulou-Dimakakou, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens

Raimo Vuorinen, Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyvaskyla

Funder:

Leonarda da Vinci, European Commission