Guidance Club Facebook Group

Based on feedback received at our events, the stakeholders of lifelong guidance in Hungary have only few official opportunities to consult, meet and train themselves. Since the counsellors are sometimes not aware of the methods and tools of other practitioners, we wanted to provide a forum for them.

The Guidance Club (Pályaori Klub) is a virtual community for guidance practitioners and pedagogues at national level. The aim of the community is to generate dialogue, interactivity, networking and cooperation between the parties, solicit their needs for cooperation, investigate ways for cooperation, collect and disseminate already existing good practices and collect suggestions for professional improvement. The Club is open for all institutions, organisations and individuals working on career orientation and guidance, job search guidance and career advice in Hungary. Our goal is to reach as broad a professional audience as possible, irrespective of the form of maintenance, (primary, secondary and higher education institutions, training providers, non-profit organisations, career counsellors and teachers, businesses and companies involved in career orientation) and strengthen professional collaboration based on mutual interests.

Using the opportunities of the social media the „Career Guidance Club” private Facebook group was launched on 22nd April 2020. The main developer is the project called „GINOP-6.2.4-VEKOP/16-2017-00001 priority project onDeveloping the quality and content of 21st century vocational training and adult education”. The Hungarian Euroguidance Centre is also actively involved in the activities of the Guidance Club. Both projects operate under the National Office of Vocational Education and Training and Adult Learning (NOVETAL).

At the beginning, based on available data on the internet and our earlier professional contacts, we created a database on practitioners and stakeholders in the country and sent e-mails about the aims of the group, its functions and the way of entry. The condition for joining the Group is answering three short questions concerning some topics the applicants are interested in, and they have to accept the group rules.

The Community facilitates communication and cooperation among career guidance professionals, institutions and organizations. It collects counselling-related topics, methods, activities, tools and services. The collected career counselling practices are based on a broad range of professional experience, providing opportunities for career counsellors to present their activities, share their good practices, and offer a platform not only for professional conversations but also for the promotion of good examples and tools applied in career counselling. The Facebook group offers also information on institutions and organisations, calls for applications, VET and career events, summer camps held countrywide, and also on international issues. Through creating topics and posts, we try to motivate the group members to work together at national level.

Webinars are organized each week to provide up-to-date information and knowledge and to discuss good practices and problems. When selecting the topics, suggestions of members and current questions are always taken into account. During the webinars the involvement of participants is extremely important.

The constantly growing number of the members shows the wide recognition of the Guidance Club in Hungary. We have reached 1.000 members in March 2021. Our reputation has reached also Hungarian minorities across the border, as we have new members from the neighbouring countries.

Our general objective is to maintain the results of the Guidance Club even after the termination of the main developer project.

The Guidance Club (Pályaori Klub) is availabe on the following link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/palyaoriklub