Australian Journal of Career Development

The tertiary preparation programme intensive school (TPPIS) for Year 12 school leavers offered young people from low socio-economic status (LSES) backgrounds an alternative pathway to university, a second chance at tertiary entrance and ultimately for some, a fast track to a better future. The intensive programme not only focuses on teaching academic communication, mathematics and study management skills but also the importance of career development whilst aiming to raise the aspirations of disadvantaged students. By incorporating social media into the teaching toolkit, there were increased opportunities for non-traditional students (from LSES backgrounds who finished high school without a tertiary admissions rank or overall position) to transition to university culture and to expand their social networks. These strong social support networks are an important factor determining career development and study success, especially for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The programme has succeeded in realising the potential of this student group with more than 80% of participants moving on to tertiary study.

Few studies have examined the effectiveness of interventions to improve mental health in the unemployed. Current evidence points to interventions improving mental health but having little, if any, impact on reemployment. In the Australian context, psychological services continue to be delivered yet little is known about their effectiveness. This study examined the effectiveness of psychological services for 783 unemployed individuals. It was hypothesized that psychological intervention would improve the symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress and general psychological distress; that individual one-on-one interventions would be more effective than other interventions; and that improvements in mental health would be associated with reemployment. Results highlighted that psychological intervention was effective at improving mental health; that tailored individual interventions were not significantly more effective than other types of interventions and that improvements in depression, anxiety and stress were associated with reemployment.

Despite their high intellectual caliber, gifted high school students may experience very unique barriers and challenges in their career exploration and planning. As such, this group of students need much help when it comes to career guidance and counseling in the school setting. Being cognizant of this reality, the current article attempts to apply key tenets of career development and career counseling theories to the helping context of career guidance and counseling for gifted high school students. It examines the unique career-related barriers and challenges faced by this student population, drawing attention to the complexity of the issue in the context of intellectual giftedness as experienced by the target group. It then proposes theory-informed career guidance and counseling interventions for the target group.

An example is presented of a career intervention developed for a group of seven refugee or humanitarian entrant non-university bound senior high school students aged 15–19 years, enrolled at a, years 7–12, catholic education college in a small regional city in Australia. The intervention was based on the Guiding Circles and Hope-Filled Engagement approaches to self-awareness and career exploration and included intervention strategies found to be critical to positive career development outcomes as well as work experience and post work experience follow-up. To evaluate the intervention, students answered questions about their perception of the most and least beneficial aspects of the intervention and their perception of the usefulness of the intervention. In addition, vocational identity and choice certainty were measured before and after the intervention. Post-school access to targeted career interventions was an implication for this group.

Mental health consumers in Australia have a basic right of access to high-quality mental health assessment and treatment. Given that universities are the entry point to the training process, they have a responsibility to train high-quality clinicians. Clinical psychology is the sub-discipline of psychology with specialist training in mental health assessment, diagnosis and treatment. There has been a call for clinical psychology programs to assessment away from a largely theoretical base to one that integrates theory with practice. In 2008, the University of Southern Queensland developed a viva voce for a course on adult psychopathology. The viva voce is an Objective Structured Clinical Examination, modeled closely on the one used by the Royal College of Australian and New Zealand Psychiatrists. This paper outlines the development of this innovation to assessment and gives directions for future research and evaluation.