Career Assistance Interventions - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Career Assistance Interventions

Natalia Stambulova, PhD

The Centre for Welfare, Health & Sport Research

Halmstad University, Sweden

Florianopolis, Brazil* June 2, 2010

• Career assistance and related theoretical frameworks and research: A brief overview
• Seven major types of career assistance interventions
• Future for career assistance

CA is provided by private (educational and clinical) consultants and within the Career Assistance Programs (CAPs)

One specific area in career assistance relates to helping athletes to cope with:

• Normative (predictable) athletic transitions, such as from junior to senior sports or from sport to the post-sport career
• Normative transitions outside of sport, such as from high school to college/university or to the workplace
• Non-normative (less predictable) transitions, such as injury or adaptation to the new culture

Based on career development & transition (CDT) research, e.g., Petitpas, Brewer & Van Raalte, 2002; Stambulova, 2000; 2010; Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004.

• 1960-70ss:very first publications
• 1980-90ss:several shifts in research
• Stages transitions
• Event process
• Athletic retirement “A whole career” perspective
• FEPSAC PS (1995, 1997); CA and CAPs
• 2000s:
• “A whole person” lifespan perspective
• Role of macro-social factors in CDT, e.g., culture and sport system; cross-cultural studies
• ISSP PS: Career development and transitions of athletes(Stambulova, Alfermann, Statler, & Côté, 2009, IJSEP)

Developmental Model of Transitions faced by Athletes(Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004)

Content – Theory-research relevance – Approaches used - Outcomes

• CP is aimed at helping athletes to set realistic career goals bridging their past, present and future, and to prepare in advance for the forthcoming transitions. CP also helps athletes in self-exploration and self-awareness
• CP is based on CDT models in work psychology and sport psychology
• Athlete’s guide for career planning (Petitpas, Champagne, Chartland, Danish, & Murphy, 1997)
• 5-SCP (Stambulova, 2007; 2009)
• Reported effectiveness for increasing athletes’ self-awareness and decision making (Petitpas, Brewer, & Van Raalte, 2009; Stambulova, in press)

A

B

C

• LSM is aimed at helping athletes to combine sport and other activities in life, to prioritize between them, to manage time and energy in a way that helps athletes to maintain good health and wellbeing
• LSM is based on a holistic lifespan perspective in CDT research, as well as research findings on preparation for athletic retirement
• Dual career programs, “shadow” programs, etc.
• Reported improvement in readiness to athletic retirement. LSM helps athletes to see their sport project as a part of the life project.

Wylleman, 2004a; 2004b; Wylleman, Theeboom, & Lavallee, 2004;Reints & Wylleman, 2009a; 2009b.

Target groups: young athletes, student-athletes

Principles of effective teaching:concept, examples, practice, reflections

Danish, Petitpas, & Hale, 1993; Danish, 2001; Lavallee, 2005; Mayocchi,& Hanrahan, 2000;Petitpas et al., 2009; Ahlgren-Bedics & Monda, 2009; Van Aken et al., 2008

• IDI are aimed at helping athletes in self-exploration and development of multidimensional personal identity. More specifically, IDI stimulate athletes to get rid of a high and exclusive athletic identity (AI) and prevent AI foreclosure.
• IDI are based on AI and athletic retirement research, as well as health related career research
• Counseling stimulating athletes’ identity exploration and awareness
• Reported effectiveness in terms of facilitating adaptation to the post-sports career.

Lally, 2007; Lavallee, 2005; Lavallee, Gordon, & Grove, 1997;Petitpas et al., 2009; Petitpas & France, in press; Stephan & Brewer, 2007; Warriner & Lavallee, 2008.

• New type of interventions aimed at helping athletes to adjust to the new socio-cultural environment when moving to the other country to play sports or doing both sports and studies
• Based on Fiske’s (2004) 5 core motives as the vehicles to adaptation: belonging, understanding, controlling, self-enhancement and trusting
• Cultural praxis approach (Ryba, 2009; 2010): Adaptation is a dynamic process of negotiation between maintaining a psychological homeostasis and engagement in socio-cultural everyday practices of the host site
• Two potential outcomes: psychological(affective) and sociocultural (behavioral) adaptation

See more in: Schinke & Hanrahan (Eds), 2009; Schinke, Gauthier, Dibuk, & Crowder, 2007; Tenenbaum, Jones et al., 2003.

• A crisis is conceptualized as normative or non-normative transition, which athletes face but are unable to cope with independently and therefore need psychological assistance (Stambulova, 2000)
• Information-processing approach based on the theoretical conception of account making in response to stress (Lavallee, Nesti et al., 2000; Perna at al., 1996)
• The “Mobilization” model of counseling athletes in crisis-transitions (Stambulova, 2000; 2005)
• Reported outcomes: Increased awareness and self-efficacy to cope with the crisis-transition; stress reduction.

Various psycho-therapeutic approaches: psychoanalysis, existential therapy, KBT

Alfermann & Stambulova, 2007; Andersen, 2001; Barney & Andersen, 2000; Cogan, 2000; Eyal, 2001; Maniar & Sommers-Flanagan, 2009; Petrie & Sherman, 2000.

CP

CI

LSM

CCEI

Athlete as a whole person

LDI

CAI

IDI

• Today CA is considered as culturally situated practices that are informed by the socio-cultural contexts in which athletes and their consultants are embedded - Cultural approach in CA
• Multicultural approach that is“the ability to work effectively with individuals who are of a different culture” (Gill, 2007) with the basic multicultural competencies, such as the awareness of one’s own cultural values and biases, understanding of the client’s worldview, and the culturally appropriate intervention strategies (Mio et al., 2006).

Mio, Barker-Hackett,& Tumambing, 2006;Ryba & Wright, 2005; 2010; Ryba (Ed.), 2010; Stambulova, 2010; Stambulova & Alfermann, 2009.

• To promote CA as a distinct discourse in applied sport psychology and get more visibility
• Increased awareness and reflexivity of the professional culture of CA that is a system of related concepts, underlying theoretical frameworks and research, consultants’ shared values, principles and ethical norms, as well as the typical working issues and professional strategies/tools used in consultants’ work with athlete-clients
• Quality of career services
• Professional identification
• ASP education involving a career perspective

Thank you for listening