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                          Working and ageing
                      276  Guidance and counselling for mature learners





                         consisting of short two-hour sessions was designed and played an integral
                         part, helping to bridge the gap between the centreʼs expert area of knowledge
                         and support more widely through other, external organisations. A wide range
                         of topics, informed by individuals participating in the project, were offered and
                         included information sessions on:
                         (a)  business start-up;
                         (b)  volunteering;
                         (c)  changing career direction and employability support;
                         (d)  coaching, mentoring and counselling;
                         (e)  recognition of prior learning;
                         (f)  lifelong learning opportunities.
                           For individuals who may have lacked confidence or motivation in contacting
                         organisations themselves to find out information, the added benefit of the
                         seminar programme was that they came along with others they met through
                         the programme who shared common areas of interest. It also provided a non-
                         threatening way of finding out information on services available externally.

                         Stage 4.  Work ability
                         The project also aimed to test the concept of work ability indexing (Ilmarinen,
                         2006). Where the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and similar
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                         studies ( ) consider the correlation between individual and work-related
                         factors and their impact on a personʼs ability to continue working at a later
                         stage in life, the ʻrealising your potentialʼ project aimed to adapt existing
                         models, by including areas other than health, and examine the impact of other
                         barriers faced by individuals.
                           Using a self-administered questionnaire, individuals are encouraged to
                         answer questions relating to five key areas that may impact on their
                         employability currently, and in the future: competence; motivation; health;
                         family; and finances.

                         Stage 5.  Evaluation
                         Evaluation takes place through a series of focus groups. The decision to adopt
                         this method of capturing feedback is driven by the rich source of information
                         available from individuals and a genuine desire to capture the thoughts of
                         older workers. Potentially, more valuable data could be collated, particularly
                         from earlier groups of individuals who came through the programme
                         18 months previously. The ability to measure the impact of the programme


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                         ( )  Swinburne university project: redesigning work for an ageing society.
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