Running head: CAREER COUNSELING ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED

Career Counseling Economically Disadvantaged

Danhua Kong
Ball State University

CAREER COUNSELING ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED

Abstract
The field of career counseling has paid intensive attention to explore and address the vocational
needs of social underrepresented groups which consists of racial minorities, people with
disabilities, and females. Little efforts, however, have been made to examine the needs and
difficulties people with economical disadvantages have, not mention career-counseling models
that are specifically designed to meet their needs. This article clarifies the term economically
disabilities and explores what career-related problems people who are economically
disadvantaged may face. Then it proposes an explicit counseling procedure in which
government training programs are advocated to attend, specific counseling techniques and
strategies are provided and explained. Since outcome assessment is increasingly important in
current research and practices, pre- and post-test with well-designed assessment tools are
recommended to use.
Keywords: economically disadvantaged, counseling strategies, outcome assessment

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Career Counseling Economically Disadvantaged

In the past two decades, vocational needs of underrepresented groups such as racial
minorities, women, people with disabilities have been examined and intensively studies in not
only research, but also theory development of vocational psychology. Massive gains have been
made though, there is little knowledge about issues people with economical disadvantages face
due to less attention paid to this group (Richardson, 1993).
The Economically Disadvantaged
Fitzgerald and Betz (1994) once raised a question regarding the meaning of career
development Is career development a meaningful term in the lives of a majority of the
population? (p. 104). Causes of the question was they findings that for those underpaid workers
who are lingering along the poverty line, or those unemployed or discouraged workers who have
already given up looking for jobs, work may not be the central to their lives anymore. Although
they may have the realization that work gives meaning to their lives and help them out of the
current situation, being underemployed or discouraged in occupations, or being in poverty for a
considerably long time contributes to their passive attitudes towards working (Brown, 2012).
Everyone who is in an unfavorable economic or social circumstance (Brown, 2012, p.
126) was broadly categorized as disadvantaged, which includes some members of minority
groups, disabled workers, some divorced or single women with children, the poor, educational
dropouts and the forth. According to Miles (1984), however, this term only describes people
who are economically deprived or poor. Miles (1984) stated that economically disadvantaged
people who are chronically poor, unemployed or newly disadvantaged, and underemployed.
Those who were born into or raised in poor families without adequate recourses to meet basic
needs are called chronically poor; those who can use savings or other available resources to
temporarily get through unemployment periods are categorized into the unemployed or newly

CAREER COUNSELING ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED

disadvantaged group; group of people who are doing unskilled jobs with insufficient incomes to
go beyond the poverty standards are called working poor.
Career-related Problems
According to Water and Moore (2011), most of the unemployed, economically deprived
people have low self-esteem and high levels of depression. Without adequate educational skills
or career training, they usually have difficulty in adjusting to the workplace or obtaining
vocational training, which leads to confidence diminished regarding the possibility to maintain a
relatively preferred job.
Its not surprising for me to guess that besides the problems mentioned above; they
havent developed clear occupational self-identity, since the deprivation of education at young
ages and the limit of career choice at job-hunting market. The lack of career self-identity
encumbers counselors while finding ways to facilitate these people gain favored jobs. Therefore,
helping clients establish clear self-understanding and realistic career expectations has become
incumbent on career counseling.
Counselors Role and Counseling Techniques
Brown (2012) stated that counselors should provide economically disadvantaged people
with career development services, in order to help address their short-term and long-term goals.
Addressing short-term goals means to involve clients in short-term planning to meet their basic
needs, while meeting long-range goals means to help them find out what they are willing to do.
There is a four-part program designed to confront clients career-related problems (Brown,
2012), including accessing to basic adult education and specific vocational training, receiving
personal and career counseling, getting career information and decision-making skills, as well as
taking appropriate vocational training and placement.

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Readiness for Career Decision Making

Since every person has unique career problems, he or she can only be best served by tailored
combinations of career resources and services (Sampson, Peterson, & Reardon, 1991). Career decisionmaking readiness assessment helps counselors identify clients presenting levels of career development, so
that they are able to choose appropriate service inventories for each individual client: those with high
readiness for occupational decision making have the potential to be served most effectively by self-help
services; those with moderate readiness may suit best to brief staff-assisted services; while low readiness
individuals may benefit most from individual case-managed services. Simple screening questions can be
used to determine clients readiness for occupational decision making, and screening instruments can also
be employed if needed (Sampson, Peterson & Reardon, 1998).
Some instruments that can be used in readiness screening are: the Career Decision Scale,
measures career certainty and indecision; My Vocational Situation, measures vocational identity, need for
information, and barriers in career decision making; the Career Decision Profile, measures decidedness,
comfort, self-clarity, knowledge about occupations and training, decisiveness, career choice importance;
the Career Attitudes and Strategies Inventory, measures job satisfaction, work involvement, skill
development, dominant style, career worries, interpersonal abuse, family commitment, risk-taking style,
and geographical barriers; the Career Maturity Inventory-Revised, measures career maturity, attitude and
career maturity competence (Sampson, Peterson, Reardon & Lenz, 2003).

Government Training Programs

After deciding which service potentially works best for a certain client, counselor could
encourage highly ready clients to take government training programs with regard to gain some
basic career-related education and training. According to Friedlander, Greenberg & Robins
(1997), Adult Basic Education, General Educational Development (GED) preparation, and
vocational education are available through community colleges and adult education schools, and
all of them include at least one of the following services:

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Remedial education in reading and math, vocational training in specific occupational

skills, subsidies paid to private sector employers to hire program participants for a
specified period of time in order to provide them with on-the-job training, short-term
subsidized "work experience" positions (paid or un-paid) at government or nonprofit
agencies to give participants an opportunity to build an employment record and ac-quire
general work skills, and job search assistance (including training in resume preparation
and interviewing, help in job finding, and direct job placement). In addition, financial
support, child care, personal and career counseling, and expense reimbursements during
training are sometimes provided (p. 1810).
Career counselors should not overlook these programs; instead, they should encourage
these clients to benefit from them regarding educational and interpersonal skills training, and onposition working experience attainment.
Personal and Career Counseling
In Water and Moore (2011)s research, unemployed persons reported lower self-esteem
and higher depression levels comparing with employed persons. Additionally, I think counselor
should be alert to the lack of clear vocational identity in these clients, and help each of them
develop or consolidate one. I will introduce some effective techniques counselors can use to deal
with clients these problems.
Constructive and narrative approaches in counseling. Since the beginning of
counseling sessions is about building work alliance with clients and getting information about
clients presenting problems, I think narrative counseling will be more effective than
standardized assessment inventories. Owing to the lack of adequate career education and
training, these people may have limited range of interests and occupational abilities. Their career

CAREER COUNSELING ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED

values may also be restrained by their current economic situations and influenced by their past
working experience. So that the results of assessment may not be very positive, and if
counselors mainly rely on the results, they may not be able to find strengths and hopes. One of
the main tasks for counseling, however, is to detect positive factors in clients lives and reinforce
them.
Since how people think about themselves and how they process what they learn play
important roles in their self-identity development, the constructive approach helps to identify
clients life patterns, draw meaning from their lives, and find out their goals for the future.
Narrative counseling allows clients to tell their life stories and construct their future career, in
which counselors are able to find success and strengths (Gysbers, 2009). By changing clients
story-telling, on the other hand, facilitates the progress to gain higher self-esteem and more
positive attitude towards future. Specific techniques such as Card Sort, Career-O-Gram, Life
Chapters and Lifeline will be helpful.
Use of mindfulness meditation. Given most economically disadvantage people are at
different levels of depression, educating or facilitating relaxation can be very helpful in
achieving counseling goals. According to Huppert and Johnson (2010), the practice of
mindfulness meditation allows an individual to be aware of their surroundings, to develop a
sense of sensitivity in perceiving every moment, and enabling them to accept stressful situations,
instead of avoiding them (pp. 264), because rather than encouraging evaluation or thinking on
past actions neither the uncertain future, it requires people to focus on their thoughts, actions, and
present moments non-judgmentally. By introducing to and guiding practice mindfulness
meditation, economically disabled people who have been suffering from worries and depression

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for a long time will achieve a state of tranquility, obtain a clearer picture of their thoughts and
inner states, and probably become capable of perceiving things and situations more effectively.
Career Information and Decision-making Skills: Hope Infusion
Founded by Snyder (2000), the hope theory indicates that hope has three primary
components: a goal, thoughts about how to achieve the goal, and the motivation or willingness to
achieve the goal. From this point of view, hope can serve as a framework for counselors to
examine clients work-related goals, ideas, and motivation. Based on this theory, the Work Hope
Scale was designed to assess the presence of work hope. Three studies conducted by Juntunen
and Wettersten (2006) which were based on a diverse sample including welfare recipients,
economically disadvantaged youth, college students, and community members, showed that the
WHS is stable and valid in distinguishing among groups that can expect to have hope about work
situations on the basis of their access of economic resources. Findings from these studies
suggest that people without sufficient resources may be not only struggling in the pursuing career
goals but also, in identifying such goals.
Given the fact that work hope is of importance in career decision making, and there are
many obstacles confronting the economically disadvantaged, what should counselors do to help?
From my point of view, providing career information and encouraging clients to gain realistic
and practical information are both good means to assist clients overcome negative views toward
work hope. Once clients have managed to deal with depression or other problems, they can use
inventories to gain better understanding of their interests, abilities and values, also get some
information and knowledge about the careers they like. Online tools such as O* NET and
DISCOVER can be used for these purposes. Afterwards, engaging in actions such as interviews
with worker, work samples, plant visits, and synthetic work situations may help clients

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understand a certain job, relate that job with self and to attainable goals, and perhaps acquire
usable role models (Brown, 2012, p. 128) gives clients chances to accumulate experience and
information.
Vocational Training and Placement
Once these clients enter or reenter the exploration stage defined by Super (Gysbers,
2009), counselors need to facilitate their process of clarifying what they want to do with certain
realization of their abilities, interests, and values. Encouraging exploratory behaviors such as
internship from counselors help them narrow down options and finally start doing vocational
plan. When these clients are implementing career choice, counselors can help them with resume,
interview skills or interpersonal skills.
Outcome Assessment
With the increasing emphasis on evidence-based practice, outcome assessment becomes a
vital component of counseling practice in deciding whether the counselors are providing
effective service and whether certain treatments are helpful for certain kind of population. In
career counseling people with economical disadvantages, outcome assessment will also be used
for both evaluation of the counseling service and clients progress in career decision making and
employment readiness.
One of the most common forms of outcome assessment is the pre-and post-test. As Ive
mentioned before, instruments such as Career Decision Scale and My Vocational Situation will
implemented at the beginning of counseling session to assess clients readiness of career decision
making. At the end of counseling practice, the same tools can also be used as post-test.
Counselors need to be aware of variables that may influence the results of assessment, for
example cultural factors, age, education levels, gender and the forth.

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10
Summary
According to what has known about economically disadvantaged peoples emotional or
mental situations, counselors should to be alert to signs of low self-esteem and depression. Once
they are in this state, counselors primary obligation is to identify causes and help them address
these negative emotions toward themselves and the world. In addition, counselor should
encourage clients to learn and implement solution-focused mechanisms such as job seeking,
work adjustment, and interpersonal skills to secure their jobs and to increase their self-esteem.
Starting from clarifying the definition of economically disadvantaged, this article
explored possible problems the economically disadvantaged may have and provided a specific
procedure of counseling which consists of taking career decision making readiness assessment at
the very beginning of counseling session and taking the same one at the end of counseling
service with the purpose to evaluate the effective of certain practice and improve their service in
the future. Besides of conducting personal and career counseling, counselors are advocated to
make full use of government training service in helping clients.

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11
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