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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.