Competence profile of the jobcoach in Supported Employment
Ronald Haccou February 2016
Introduction
In this Annex we want to explain what competences are and how to construct for example the competence profile for the jobcoach in supported employment (or a competence profile for persons with disabilities).
About seven years ago we started the discussion in the Dutch Association for supported employment (NVS; Nederlandse Vereniging voor Support) about how to assure that jobcoaches who work according to the principles of supported employment are really working and trained persons with disabilities following those principles. In other words how to keep guard over the quality of jobcoaches working in supported employment.
At different places and levels several organisations were trying to develop such a profile. So the NVS started to investigate how far each organisation was and if they were willing to cooperate in designing a jobcoach competence profile.
In 2010 we presented this competence profile as the result of an initiative taken by Steinmetz / De Compaan voor Werk (part of the AWBZ care organisation Steinmetz / De Compaan, an UWV-approved enterprise for re-integration and job coach organisation) under supervision of Fontys OSO (a University of Applied sciences) and in cooperation with OBA-Milestones and Elan Training.
At the same time we registered the brand-name jobcoach NVS/EUSE. So a jobcoach, who meets the standard of accreditation for working according to the principles of supported employment, is allowed to use this title. Thus everybody knows when one see or meet this title that this jobcoach has the qualities and is qualified to support people to work
The nice thing in competences is that it is possible to work out competences also for persons with disabilities. Actually these were first produced before the competence profile of the jobcoach in supported employment.
Competences
The concept competence is being used all the time without the explanation what it exactly should mean to us. This subject is mixed up with terms as skills, knowledge and even with qualifications. People agree in general about the fact that a competence should always be put in a certain context and that it should become visible in behaviour, shown either spontaneously or by encouragement. Most of the time we find the terms skills, attitude, underlying knowledge, information, personal traits and motivation in the description of the term competence.
Our experience in the education world makes us choose for the following description of the concept competence (Weggeman):
Competence is someone’s ability to perform a certain task. This ability can be described as a product of the underlying Knowledge, Skills, Attitude and Experience, which turn up in a certain context on a certain moment.
Knowledge means educational skills and equipment or company skills.
(I know …)
Skills can be specified further in basic skills or key skills, general practical skills and specific practical skills.
(I can …)
Attitude includes things like motivation and personal traits.
(I want… or I am…)
Experience is what one has done so far in his or her work, or other forms of experience.
(I have…)
The question how we can give shape to the description of competences is important. Van den Berg and Blokhuis (2001) suggest using a number of W-questions. The descriptions of future labour competences will have to contain:
• Human activities in employment situations
• Tasks in employment situations
• Competences people should master to do a good job
W-questions: / Results in:What is someone doing? / Activities
Where is he or she doing it?
When is he or she doing it?
Who are involved?
What can happen during the activity? / Tasks
Why does someone do what he or she is doing?
What qualities should someone have during the activity? / Competences
So a competence is always described in terms of “is able to” and “is adequate to”.
For example the competence to communicate for the jobcoach is formulated as:
The job coach NVS/EUSE is able to adequatelycommunicate.
The underlying knowledge, skills, attitude and experience are for example:
Knowledge:I am aware of the importance of active listening, summarising and asking questions until the issue is clear
Skills:I can listen actively, summarise and as questions until the issue is clear
Attitude:I am open, honest and curious
Experience:I have (Here the job coach describes his / her own experiences in the field of this competency using the STARR method (see Appendix 1))
Competences and Skills
The difference between competences and skills is easier to describe for persons with disabilities or pupils in the transition from school to employment (from now on we will also use the word client).
Skills are the central point in competence description. It is no surprise that the terms competence and skills are mixed up all the time.
Skills are divided in key skills, general practical skills and specific practical skills.
Key skills
Key skills are skills that are conditional for performing in a profession and in daily life. They are general of nature and are geared to interactive skills (social and communicative competences) and to certain aspects of doing things independently, especially taking care of yourself.They can be learned at school with the use of the experiences of pupils inside and outside the school, e.g. work placement, at home etc. These competences apply to all pupils.
Examples of key skills are:
- The pupil is capable of following instructions and of carrying out tasks by order
- The pupil is capable of working according a scheme and of consequently applying the work procedure
- The pupil can cope with people and is customer-friendly
General practical skills
All pupilshave to acquire these skills, regardless of their outflow. These skills are essential within sectors such as engineering and technology, care and welfare, business and agriculture. These skills are needed for support jobs in nearly every work place. The environment does not influence the nature of the work. These are practical skills that are important to all pupils for gaining practical self-reliance. The general practical skills are not restricted to a situation, but can be required in various practical learning situations.
Examples of general practical skills in the open space planning of the agricultural sector are:
- The pupil can carry out simple garden work, such as spitting, raking, weeding, pulling out weeds and mowing the lawn
Specific practical skills
The contents of these practical skills fit in one practical situation and generally belong to one profession. Pupils can acquire these skills at school, in work placements and during school hours in a specific course in connection with the school or elsewhere. These skills are only important for pupils who wish to specialize in a certain direction.
Examples of specific practical skills in the open space planning of the agricultural sector are:
- The pupil can assist with arranging a simple planting project; he or she can plant new materials such as bushes, shrubs and bulbs; he or she can assist with levelling the ground; he or she can lay turf and assist with making fences, e.g. drilling holes, putting up poles etc.
Competences in practice
In practice working with competences means that, while a jobcoach is proving for his accreditation that he or she mastered a competence, he or she is at the same time guiding or supporting a person with disabilities or a pupil to employment by mastering their competences. Whether those are labour, citizenship or social competences.
So by accepting this starting point quality is assured.
But what do we need if we are working with competences.
To find out if a person masters a competence is only possible if job-related activities
are being carried out in as realistic as possible a manner. The most realistic
context is on-the-job training, the so-called work sample. To measure competences,
we can use work samples, practical tests, cases, practical tasks, practical
achievements or resolving problems. We talk about an integrated assessment of
knowledge, skills, understanding, attitude, personal traits and experience. A
practical test is geared to measuring one or more competences and will have to
meet certain quality criteria. Here we can think of a lifelike situation, a valid and
reliable measurement of the competence development and an adequate description
of the content and context, e.g. a description of a core job or a core task. The
client will know beforehand what is expected from him or her.
To measure competences we can use the following competence diagram
(Claasen Fontys OSO):
This diagram helps to show the ‘typical situation’ of the client.
The exploratory interview is the first contact between the job-coach and the client. Beside the information that is gathered from the registration form/intake form, it is a first and important step in the process of gathering and exchanging information:
- Which work-related experience does this client have?
- Why was he or she not successful in previous jobs or in previous contacts with the labour market?
- What about the client’s preference for certain types of jobs?
- Are these interests based on realistic expectations? Etc.
The answers to these questions will offer clues for the development of a suitable training programme for this client.
The STARR method:
- is a successful way to initiate a discussion on this topic, in particular for persons with an intellectual disability who have trouble to judge their own possibilities.
- is a workable method for Portfolio methodology, because it helps to make concrete someone’s experiences.
- offers opportunities to concretise someone’s experiences and makes it possible to also identify areas and competences that would require training.
- provides you with some systematic steps to describe relevant experiences of clients, e.g. in relation to employment. If a client has no specific experience with labour related situations, experiences in other areas, such as education or leisure time, will be used to complement the information that was already gathered to determine the kind of training programme that is required for this individual.
The STARR method implies that during a conversation a jobcoach can ask a
client about Situation, Task, Action, Result and Reflection.
1.Situation
In this phase the client is asked to talk about recent experiences in situations similar to his/her future job or employment situation (preferably recent experiences)
Examples:“You tell me that you want to be a gardener. Can you give recent examples of yourself working in a garden?” (At home? At school? At former labour experiences? Etc.)
Or“You tell me that you get angry when people make jokes about your family. Can you give me an example of getting angry in such a situation?”
2.Task
The second step is to ask the client to identify what his /her exact tasks were in the situation previously described.
Example:“You told me about your experience as “being a truck driver” During last summer holidays you accompanied your father when transporting vegetables to Italy. What expected your father you to do? What was your task?
3.Action
The next step is to ask the client to describe the action he or she undertook. What were the client’s concrete activities, how did he or she behave?
Examples:“You just told me that last Saturday you helped out in the grocery in your street. What did you do exactly?”
Or“You just told me that you were struggling with another student when the teacher sent you out of class! What did you do exactly and why did you do it this way”
4.Result
Here you try to get information about the effect of the behaviour (action) the client described before.
Example:“So you ignored him when he tried to impress your new girlfriend. What was the result of you doing so?”
5.Reflection
During the last step we try to focus on the reflection of the client looking back on this experience. We ask the client whether he or she would act or react in the same way (or differently) if he or she would be confronted with a similar situation in the future. The ‘reflection’ offers steppingstones for the client’s learning process.
Example:“So you did not like waiting for half an hour for the boss to come and give you new instructions when the job was done? What do you intend to do next time?”
One of the first things we also need is to record the progress. That is the reason why we developed a Basic Portfolio Supported Employment for pwd’s or pupils (See Annex 2 Basic Portfolio).
A portfolio is nothing more or less than a file where proofs of a person are kept. This file can be a box, a ring binder or if you can use the portfolio more efficient and effective, it can be electronic portfolio. More efficient and effective implies that one already have control over the paper version of it. Thus we always start with a paper version to get use to the system and building up or personalise the portfolio to the needs of the company.
It is not something new. Nowadays students of (graphic) art are still keep their work in huge files. In this way it is easy to show others what they have make / produced so persons can see what qualities one have and how good they are in their work.
A portfolio is an overview of information about all the things you can do / perform and what you are good at. So what skills do you have mastered, what knowledge do you have, etc.
An important difference with a curriculum vitae is that a portfolio not only contains a description of what you can and knows, but also the proofs for that.
Proofs can be for example: (copies of) diplomas and certificates, but also school reports, pieces of work, results of tests, letters, reports etc. etc.
Aims of a portfolio:
- A possibility to present yourself to possible employers or (job)coaches
- Setting up an overview of what one can, what your wishes are, how to reach goals, contracts with yourself and your (job)coaches
- Gaining insight of the distance to the labour market, fine-tuning ambitions, record the necessary and desirable coaching to reach the goals.
A portfolio starts as a document of growth. So it is important not to raise all the goals at the same moment in full potential. Therefore if we look at the goals, we always have to keep in mind things corresponding to cognitive capacities, self-support and self-knowledge (like age or experience of life) of the client.
If the pwd or pupil has limited cognitive capacities he or she needs more support to draw up a self-presentation. But keep in mind that the client always steers the process.
A Basic Portfolio:
- must be simple and useful
- makes directly clear what it aims at, how it is build up and what the possibilities are
- is a document of growth that especially starts at the client self
The starting point is the view of supported employment as described in the Toolkit of EUSE or the handbook of WASE
This Basic Portfolio contains:
1. Personal details
2. Summary of personality, ambitions and skills
3. Ability to cope/manage
4. Vocational Profile
5. Skills and competence
a. School
b. Social
c. Vocational
6. Employment profile
7. Action plan (can be derived from the Toolkit EUSE).
Since the client decides which steps he or she wants to take, the client formulates (with or without help) a Personal Development Plan (PDP) or an Individual Transition Plan (ITP).
According to this plan the client get the training to master the competence. In the training phase the client is trained according to the Personal Development Plan. The purpose is that he or she proves that the competence has mastered.
From time to time theclienthas to clear the files of evidence, which can be a written report from one or several expert(s); showing the competence in a (simulation of a) real life setting; a video recording; a judgement by others; giving the right answers on questions from the assessor, who can use for this purpose also the STARR method.
If the client discovers that he or she lacks one or several components (knowledge, skill, attitude) of a competence, the client must have the possibility to master, learn or get trained on these parts.
At the end the clientis able to show on an adequate way the competence, knows how to act with the appropriate attitude in the right context.
The client is able to say: I know how to do it, I am able to … and I know why!!
The addition “I know Why” reflects that he or she can tell you the backgrounds of the behaviour he or she shows.
So if a jobcoach masters the competence to communicate; he or she will say: I know how to communicate, I am able to communicate and I know why.