"Job Skills Simulation"

The Creation and Mobilization of Counselling Resources for Youth (CAMCRY) is a program initiated and managed by the Canadian Guidance and Counselling Foundation to plan, organize, and evaluate the creation and mobilization of new and innovative methods of career counselling for youth, and, equally, for the continuing education of counsellors.

Job Skills Simulation is one of over 40 projects in the CAMCRY program. It is designed to simulate a work environment to compensate for the lack of direct experience in job settings and the limited understanding, on the part of the youth, of what is expected by employers and their limited experience in developing work skills and attitudes, elements that hinder successful transitions to work.

The project will provide an "as if" work environment intended to give the users:

• generic skills required for successful work performance;
• information concerning specific skills needed in selected types of workplaces;
• information about their own values, attitudes, and interpersonal skills, and how these qualities may be expressed in day-to-day workplace behavior;
• a chance to explore a range of possible work environments to find out how they may interact with the students' current values, attitudes, interpersonal skills, and decision making skills;
• practice in typical workplace interactions and negotiations with employees and managers; and
• an opportunity to compare their own values, attitudes and workplace decisions and behaviors with those of others as a means of developing greater self-awareness and knowledge of alternative approaches to dealing with workplace demands.

The simulation is intended to form part of the career education curriculum at the senior high school level, but it may also be used in a variety of other classroom situations and program contexts.

This project was developed at the University of Calgary and was tested successfully in Alberta in 1991-92.