Career Development Practitioner
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Program Overview
The Career Development Practitioner program prepares students for career counselling roles with a blend of theory and practice. It covers career planning, assessment, change management, and ethical conduct, culminating in a hands-on field placement for real-world experience.
Program Details
Program Code
CPT2
Credential:
Ontario College Graduate Certificate
Duration
90 Weeks
Start Dates
Locations
Availability
Your Learning Experience
The Career Development Practitioner program offers a comprehensive curriculum designed to prepare students for roles in career and employment counselling. Combining academic coursework with supervised mentorship, the program provides a strong foundation in both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Students engage in studies of individual and group career counselling, learning techniques in career planning and transition management, and understanding how to guide diverse groups through their professional journeys.
Starting with an orientation to employment counselling, students develop skills for effective helping relationships and communication. They progress to applying statistics for career assessment and exploring ethical considerations. The program covers theories of change and their impacts on the workforce, strategies for supporting clients through transitions, and the social dynamics of work. Field placements provide real-world experience, essential for building professional networks and gaining practical insights. The program also ensures students understand ethical standards in career counselling, preparing them to meet the field's challenges and make a significant professional impact.
Learning Outcomes
The graduate has reliably demonstrated the ability to:
- Apply evidence-based career development practices in advising diverse client groups.
- Utilize self-reflective and critical thinking skills, knowledge and attitudes to enhance counselling, teaching and learning strategies with groups and individuals.
- Incorporate self-directed and entrepreneurial activities into ongoing professional development to respond proactively to the changing labour market and professional requirements.
- Integrate appropriate career information resources and tools with career and employment strategies to: enable a diverse range of clients including women, youth, older workers, aboriginal communities, visible minorities and immigrants, disadvantaged and marginalized individuals to meet their employment goals, and to understand the change process, transition stages and career cycles.
- Perform needs assessments and develop subsequent interventions using case management strategies, counselling techniques and assessment tools, psychometric and constructivist that enable diverse ranges of clients to meet their individual employment goals.
- Design consulting, advising and teaching strategies that incorporate trends and issues of the changing labour market to assist clients in job search and career transitions.
- Integrate emergent technologies into the full spectrum of Career Development processes and applications to maximize service delivery to clients navigating changing labour market requirements.
- Adhere to relevant legislation and social policy to plan programs, interventions, referrals, and resources for client groups.
- Use current work search tools and strategies to facilitate successful client job search.
- Apply the stages of adult development and learning, and models & theories of career development, which together lay the foundation for counselling and facilitation in career development work.
- Apply and demonstrate compliance with the Canadian Standards and Guild lines for Career Development Practitioners’ code of ethics.
- Develop an awareness of the impact of research efforts on career development practices in Canada.
Admission Requirements
A Two- or Three-Year College Diploma, or a Degree
OR
Acceptable combination of related work experience and
post-secondary education as judged by the College*
OR
Five years of work experience in the field as judged by the
College to be equivalent*
Note:
*Applicants may be required to submit a resume and cover
letter that includes details of work experience.
International Admission Equivalencies
Admission equivalencies for Fanshawe depends on your country of study. Please enter your location to see the requirements for your country below.
English Language Requirements
English Language Requirements
| Test | Score |
|---|---|
| TOEFL iBT | 88 |
| IELTS Academic | Overall score of 6.5 with no score less than 6.0 in any of the four bands |
| CAEL | Overall score of 70 with no score less than 60 in any of the four bands |
| PTE Academic | 59 |
| Cambridge English | Overall score of 176 with no language skill less than 169 |
| ESL4/GAP5 | Minimum grade of 80% in Level 9, 75% in Level 10 |
| Duolingo | Overall score of 120, with no score lower than 105 |
Courses
| Level 1 | ||||
| Take all of the following Mandatory Courses: | ||||
| SOCI-6001 | Orientation to Employment Counselling | 3 | ||
| This course provides the learner with an overview of introductory theory and skills pertaining to the helping relationship process. Specifically, the learner will engage in learning projects, which allows for skill development related to self-understanding, listening, non-verbal and verbal communication, assessment and constructive feedback. Students will have the opportunity to conduct a basic employment interview session. | ||||
| SOCI-6002 | The Role of Assessment Instruments | 3 | ||
| The student will develop skills in the application of descriptive and inferential statistics in the field of career counselling. The learner will practice using assessment tools, to examine the procedures for using and interpreting data using a variety of other tests/tools. Ethics, limitations and cautions of administering standardized tests will be discussed. | ||||
| SOCI-6003 | Career Transition & Change Management | 3 | ||
| This course will provide an opportunity for the student to acquire and refine knowledge, skills and abilities concerning several aspects of change and life transitions. The student will gain an understanding of how change affects the working population through the examination and review of selected theories and models of planned change. | ||||
| SOCI-6007 | Sociological Perspective of Work | 3 | ||
| This course will focus on understanding the principles of industrial relations with an emphasis on ensuring that students understand their rights in the workplace. The lessons learned in the course are intended to have application to the student's personal life and work life. | ||||
| SOCI-6008 | Entrepreneurism & Program Management | 3 | ||
| This course explores the roles of the entrepreneur in career development orientated organizations and the entrepreneur work in the private sector; allowing the student to access their own entrepreneurial traits & strategies for intrapreneurial and entrepreneurial endeavors. Market research techniques and marketing strategies will be developed at the micro-individual level and macro-agency or private business level. Operational and financial planning will also be examined. | ||||
| SOCI-6009 | Counselling Diverse/Special Needs Groups | 3 | ||
| This course will allow the Career Counsellor to identify characteristics, barriers to employment and strategies to support a variety of special groups. These groups include people with disabilities, displaced workers, older workers, youth, immigrants and visible minorities, persons with learning disabilities, the mentally ill, ex-offenders, persons with developmental disabilities, Ontario Works Clients, Indigenous people, women, men and the working poor. | ||||
| SOCI-6010 | Career Counselling | 3 | ||
| The principles of the career counselling process are explored in this course. Theory is linked to practice and students are exposed to a variety of strategies to use with clients in both the individual and group settings. Students will have the opportunity to work with and practice a model of career counselling in which they will be discussing their experiences with their classmates. | ||||
| SOCI-6017 | Labour Market Career Development | 3 | ||
| This course will provide a global approach to the dramatic changes in the workplace and its fluid reactive trends. Course topics include; the globalization of the economy, the diffusion of micro technologies, industrial shifts, the growth of non-standard employment, cultural diversity and demographic shifts on future work will all be examined in their inter-relational context. This course will also examine permanent economic change; new work patterns, and promote the development of critical analysis for the career decision-making process. | ||||
| SOCI-6012 | Applied Organizational Psychology | 3 | ||
| Students completing this course will have the skills to facilitate goal setting, problem solving, conflict resolution, strategic planning and other group activities. | ||||
| FLDP-6021 | Field Placement Career Development | 4 | ||
| Students will work with a mentor to create a learning contract, which will provide experiences to practice their career counselling skills and theories, and further gain experience in the career development field. Students will do self-reflection, journaling and other learning activities throughout this course. Students will be begin to develop a network and make contracts within this feild. (All courses in the program should be completed prior to this placement course) | ||||
| SOCI-6016 | Ethics in Career Development | 3 | ||
| This course reviews the Canadian Standards and Guidelines of the code of ethics of career development with special emphasis on the professional behaviour, interpersonal competence, needs assessment and referral associated within the role. Students will also understand the code of ethics, within client facilitations and counselling, community building, and information and resource management. | ||||