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National Career Development Guidelines - Junior High School

The National Career Development Guidelines (NCDG) represent a major nationwide effort to foster career development at all levels.  They are a competency-based approach to career development designed to help plan quality career guidance and counseling.

The Guidelines address four developmental levels—Elementary School, Middle School/Junior High School, Senior High School and Adult. They focus on three career development areas—self-knowledge, educational and occupational exploration, and career planning.  The NCDG contain competency areas that represent knowledge, skills, and abilities individuals should master in order to deal effectively with their own career development.  The NCDG also identify specific indicators that describe behaviors needed to demonstrate mastery of career development competencies.

The NCDG were developed to assist the process of creating a national awareness that certain competencies are required of students to be prepared for the world of work in the twenty-first century.  The National Guidelines are intended to strengthen existing guidance programs, not to replace them.

MIDDLE/JUNIOR HIGH LEVEL

Self-Knowledge

Competency I:  Knowledge of the importance of a positive self concept.
Indicators:
Describe personal likes and dislikes.
Describe individual skills required to fulfill different life roles.
Describe how one's behavior influences the feelings and actions of others.
Identify environmental influences on attitudes, behaviors, and aptitudes.

COMPETENCY II:    Skills to interact positively with others.
Indicators:
Demonstrate respect for the feelings and beliefs of others.
Demonstrate an appreciation for the similarities and differences among people.
Demonstrate tolerance and flexibility in interpersonal and group situations.
Demonstrate effective skills in responding to criticism.
Demonstrate effective group memberships skills.
Demonstrate effective social skills.
Demonstrate understanding of different cultures, lifestyles, attitudes, and abilities.  

COMPETENCY III: Knowledge of the importance of growth and change.
Indicators:
Identify feelings associated with significant experiences.
Identify internal and external sources of stress.
Demonstrate ways of responding to others when under stress.
Describe changes that occur in the physical, psychological, social and emotional development of an individual.  
Describe physiological and psychological factors as they relate to the career development. 
Describe the importance of career, family, and leisure activities to mental, emotional, physical and economic well-being.  

Educational and Occupational Exploration

COMPETENCY IV: Knowledge of the benefits of educational achievement to career opportunities.
Indicators:
Describe the importance of academic and occupational skills in the work world.
Identify how the skills taught in school subjects, academic and contextual, are used in various occupations. 
Describe individual strengths and weaknesses in school subjects.
Describe a plan of action for increasing basic skills.
Describe the skills needed to adjust to changing occupational requirements.
Describe how continued learning enhances the ability to achieve goals. 
Describe how skills relate to the selection of high school courses of study.
Describe how aptitudes and abilities relate to broad occupational groups. 

COMPETENCY V: Understanding the relationship between work and learning.
Indicators:
Demonstrate effective learning habits and skills.
Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of personal skills and attitudes to job success. Describe the relationship of personal attitudes, beliefs, abilities and skills to occupations. 

COMPETENCY VI: Skills to locate, understand and use career information.
Indicators:
Identify various ways occupations can be classified. 
Identify a number of occupational groups for exploration. 
Demonstrate skills in using school, community, and technology resources to learn about occupational groups.  
Identify sources to obtain information about occupational groups including self employment.
Identify skills that are transferable from one occupation to another. 
Identify sources of employment in the community. 

COMPETENCY VII:  Knowledge of the skills necessary to seek and obtain jobs. 
Indicators:
Demonstrate personal qualities (dependability, promptness, getting along with others), that are needed to get and keep jobs.
Describe terms and concepts used in describing employment opportunities and conditions. 
Demonstrate skills to complete job application. 
Demonstrate skills and attitudes essential for a job interview. 

COMPETENCY VIII: Understanding how work relates to the needs and function of society.
Indicators:
Describe the importance of work to society. 
Describe the relationship between work and economic and societal needs. 
Describe economic contributions workers make to society. 
Describe the effects that societal, economic, and technological change have on occupations.

Career Planning

COMPETENCY IX: Skills to make decisions.
Indicators:
Describe personal beliefs and attitudes. 
Describe how career development is a continuous process with a series of choices.
Identify possible outcomes of decisions.
Describe school courses related to personal, educational and occupational interests. 
Describe how the expectations of others affect career planning.
Identify way in which decisions about education and work relate to other major life decisions. Identify advantages and disadvantages of various secondary and postsecondary programs for the attainment of career goals. 
Identify the requirements for secondary and postsecondary programs. 

COMPETENCY X: Knowledge of the interrelationship of life roles.
Indicators:
Identify how different work and family patterns require varying kinds and amounts of energy, participation, motivation, and talent.
Identify how work roles at home satisfy needs of the family.
Identify personal goals that may be satisfied through a combination of work, community, social and family roles. 
Identify personal leisure choices in relation to lifestyle and attainment of future goals.
Describe the advantages and disadvantages of various life role options. 
Describe the interrelationship among family, work, and leisure decisions. 

COMPETENCY XI: Knowledge of different occupations and changing male/female roles.
Indicators:
Describe advantages and problems of entering nontraditional occupations. 
Describe the advantages of taking courses related to personal interest, even if they are most often taken by members of the opposite gender. 
Describe stereotypes, biases, and discriminatory behaviors that may limit opportunities for women and men in certain occupations

COMPETENCY XII: Understanding the process of career planning.
Indicators:
Demonstrate knowledge of exploratory processes and programs.
Identify school courses that meet tentative career goals.
Demonstrate knowledge of academic and school-to-work transition opportunities offered at the high school level.
Describe skills needed in a variety of occupations, including self employment. 
Identify strategies for managing personal resources (talents, time, money) to achieve tentative career goals. 
Develop an individual career plan, updating information from the elementary-level plan and including tentative decisions to be implemented in high school.