Description

Lauren Jones, NCC: Strategies for Gender Equity and Advocacy in Career Development and Decision Making

Lauren K Jones (Austin) MA, NCC is a licensed school counselor, nationally certified counselor, past expeditionary learning instructor and past Statewide Outreach Coordinator for Colorado’s free guidance website: CollegeInColorado. Currently, she is the Career & Technical Education (CTE) Program Director for Special Populations, Counseling and Equity with the Colorado Community College System (CCCS), serving k-12 school districts and postsecondary institutions by providing trainings that help support the implementation of comprehensive career guidance, equity & inclusivity of programming and collaborative efforts that parallel Colorado’s education initiatives that support Career Literacy and Meaningful Career Conversations (ICAP, PWR, Graduation Guidelines, Career Pathways and more…). Her passion for students and their authentic, meaningful learning can sometimes be contagious. Her advocacy for School Counselors and all things Career Literacy is prominent in the work she does. Lauren also coordinates the implementation of Middle School CTE programs as well serves as Project Manager for Equity in Education, supervisor of Colorado’s statewide PWR/ICAP Facilitators (10+), Subject Matter Expert for Equity in CTE with Advance CTE and US Dept of Ed, Region V representative for ACTE Guidance & Career Development Division and constant advocate for Special Populations and everything CTE!

WEBINAR DESCRIPTION: The US Department of Labor identifies gender inequity as the existence of artificial barriers, based on attitudinal or organizational bias, that prevent women and men from advancing within their organization and reaching their full potential. Attitudinally, all of us are exposed to the same stereotyping of genders and occupations.  Because we’ve grown up with these pre-conceived ideas, it is sometimes difficult to break out of the habit of thinking of girls as ballerinas and boys as fire fighters, girls as nurses and boys as doctors, men as CEOs and women as support staff. There is men’s work and women’s work.

Although there has been some forward progress in the last few decades, there are still inequities in pay and opportunity between men and women. Research shows that even though children are aware of the reality of men and women working in a range of jobs, they still see occupations as gendered in the most stereotypical of ways. The goal of academic and career counseling and coaching should be to break down these stereotypes to encourage both men and women to consider all careers for their own career satisfaction and the good of the economic prosperity of the economy.

In this webinar we will examine some of the inequities and provide practical strategies for career counselors and coaches to adopt and implement in their day-to-day work.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES: 

• Become refreshed or introduced to various equity concepts such as: micromessaging, stereotype threat, implicit bias and mindset
• Gain knowledge around non-traditional career paths (by gender)
• Develop a deeper understanding of career pathways and the role career & technical education plays in them
• Experience interactive and experiential activities that support equity endeavors
• Dialogue about equitable marketing, instruction, meaningful career conversations and equity efforts 
• Receive access to resources,  toolkits, infographics and more.