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service. However, ‘sector’ can be defined in any way that reflects a specific set of influences
for career guidance practitioners and their clients.

6.2. The structure of the competence framework

The competence framework for career guidance practitioners comprises three sections:
foundation competences, client-interaction competences, and supporting competences.

6.2.1. Foundation competences

The first section of the competence framework describes the abilities, skills and knowledge
that should pervade all professional activity by career guidance practitioners. These
statements do not reflect stand-alone activities, but are the essential foundation of personal
skills, values and ethical approaches which should be exhibited in all activities undertaken
with or for users of career guidance services. Foundation competences are most closely
related to subsections (c) and (d) of the definition of competence which has been used in
developing this framework, and is included below.

6.2.2. Client-interaction competences

Client-interaction competences cover those actions that are prominent and visible to users of
services. In particular, they cover activities where clients themselves are likely to be directly
involved, through conversation or participation in groups, via communication technologies, or
in supported access to other services and facilities. Client activities do not always occur in
face-to-face situations, and the introduction to this section encourages attention to the
differences that arise when services are provided at a distance through various media.

6.2.3. Supporting competences

Supporting competences describe a range of additional activities which are needed to
support career guidance practitioners in their work with service users. They relate to the
development of the service offered, to the career guidance practitioner’s management of
his/her own role, and to the way that he/she reaches out within geographical and
professional communities.

6.3. Definitions of competence and of career guidance

The following definitions, introduced earlier in this report (Section 5.1.), are reproduced here
as an important aspect of the context for understanding and using the competence
framework.

6.3.1. Definition of competence
This study has adopted the following four-part definition of competence:
(a) cognitive competence, involving the use of theory and concepts, as well as informal tacit
knowledge gained experientially;
(b) functional competence (skills or know-how), involving those things that a person should be
able to do when they are functioning in a given area of work, learning or social activity;

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