This week, I participated in a National Advocacy Campaign steering committee meeting hosted by CERIC. We discussed the report on what we had put together at Cannexus, and we are now at a point where we can start testing messaging.

 

The challenge is to create an advocacy message that meets the needs of all who work in career development, whether in the K-12 education systems, post-secondary school career centres and work-integrated learning, private career services, or those who deliver career development services through publicly funded programs. The landscape is vast, all with diverse funding and administration. (The Challenge Factory and the Canadian Career Development Foundation did a good job identifying the landscape in their report Scoping the Canadian Career Development Landscape.) 

 

It has been tricky to come up with a unifying message, clarify advocacy goals, and translate it into a language understood by those inside and outside the career development ecosystem. The result is the development of one umbrella idea, "decent work," with room for several other, more specific messages. 

 

The work plan for February to September 2024 is to:

• Identify all content and collateral we need for the campaign
• Develop social media materials and copy needed for the campaign
• Develop all other collateral for the campaign
• Develop clear metrics for feedback and success criteria to evaluate the campaign
• Build out campaign strategy

Below is a chart showing the messages and goals we discussed in January. It reflects a variety of thoughts and ideas. Ceric hired Overlap Associates as our consultant, and I'm amazed at how they've managed to consider everyone's input while dealing with a lot of information. I feel honoured to be part of both the steering committee and the working committee, representing employment service providers in BC.

Janet Morris-Reade, CEO
ASPECT BC