3.4 Career guidance and counselling
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Career guidance and counselling services
Following the 2013 Recommendation, and with the purpose of guaranteeing young people access to training or employment within a defined maximum period from which they can access the labour market, the Spanish Active Employment Support Strategy 2021-2024. contains, among other measures, the provision of professional advising. The advice and job counselling services are part of the Portfolio of Common Services of the National Employment System (Cartera Común de Servicios del Sistema Nacional de Empleo). The Portfolio is approved by Royal Decree 7/2015, of 16 January, by which the Portfolio of Common Services of the National Employment System was created (Real Decreto 7/2015). The Decree established the services to be provided by all Employment Public Services.
The job counselling services, conceived as a right of unemployed people, are provided in-person through the employment public offices or the collaborating entities of the Employment Public Services. Counselling is also offered remotely through the Employment Website (Portal de Empleo), and through the technical resources provided.
The services users are:
- youth not in employment or education
- young people who have prematurely dropped out of the educational system, attracted by employment offers in sectors that no longer offer enough opportunities
- trained youth lacking experience
- inexperienced and poorly trained young people
- long-term unemployed youth
- young people on unemployment benefits but wishing to have a job
- young entrepreneurs bidding to join the labour market on their own account.
The counselling and advice services carry out an individual diagnosis and the elaboration of a profile, the design of a personalised itinerary for employment, follow-up of user activities, help with CV layout, technological advice and help with electronic means of accessing employment and additional information on the labour market and measures and services offered by the employment public services, among others.
The Portfolio of Common Services of the National Employment System provides for the creation of an institutional monitoring group, which met the first time in March 2017.
The National Plan for the Implementation of the Youth Guarantee (Plan Nacional de Implantación de la Garantía Juvenil en España) establishes actions in respect to professional counselling, work information and guidance in order to find a job. This plan has been funding by European Union (Reinforced Youth Guarantee). The counselling and guidance programmes for youth are implemented by the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy and by the Autonomous Regions, and are operationalised within the Employment and Social Affairs Sectorial Conference, regulated by the Royal Decree 1722/07.
Funding
Funding for the services included in the Portfolio of Common Services of the National Employment System are regulated in article 14 of Royal Decree 7/2015 (Real Decreto 7/2015). The employment counselling and advice services, as offered mainly at sub-national level, are funded, generally, through the budget of the Autonomous Regions. Eventually, some services may be funded by the European Social Fund or other EU funds.
Quality assurance
Article 16 of Royal Decree 7/2015, of 16 January, by which the Portfolio of Common Services of the National Employment System is approved, establishes the implementation of some of the quality management systems, such as the EFQM Model, and the Assessment, Learning and Improvement Models (Modelos de Evaluación, Aprendizaje y Mejora. EVAM).
The Spanish Active Employment Support Strategy 2021-2024 already establishes certain ‘impact indicators’ to determine the efficacy of the objectives, and therefore, quality. For the period of the new Spanish Active Employment Support Strategy 2021-2024, the evaluation paradigm will shift from the use of indicators focused exclusively on the distribution of funds to a transparent and accessible results-oriented evaluation model.