Parents as Career & Transition Support

The PACTS program is a series of workshops and resources developed to provide parents with up to date information about career transition, enabling them to support their children effectively when they are making career transition decisions.

A set of three workshops are offered that aim to provide basic information to bridge the gap between what parents did when they left school and what happens when you leave school now. The program primarily targets parents of years 8 and 9 students to prepare them for the decision making in the senior years of their students’ schooling.

The program was introduced as a response to parent and student concern, as most students wanted their parents to assist them in the career transition decisions, but most parents felt that they did not have sufficient knowledge of employment and training options to assist their children.

By participating in the PACTS Program, Parents:

• Are alerted to the scope and importance of their role in transition decision making, and are encouraged to communicate with their children in an ongoing fashion
• Gain strategies for communicating with adolescents
• Learn how to encourage and support their children to explore their interests and motivations and how to link these interests to broaden occupational categories
• Are equipped to use career resources such as the Job Guide and My Future to help their children explore their interests
• Learn how to find and pursue training and employment pathways that fit the unique and changing needs and interests of their children
• Are familiarised with the range of career resources that are available to their children
• Learn about the youth labor market

The PACTS workshops are interactive with very little use of visual aids and the focus is on discussion and participation by parents with the facilitator and other parents sharing their experiences and developing strategies for the future.

For further information contact the career adviser at your Secondary College or Adrian Gianinni at the Baw Baw Latrobe Local Learning and Employment Network on (03) 5633 2868 or email adrian.bblllen@dcsi.net.au