Creative Counselor

Hopefully some of you have noticed that I'm a very creative person. Not specific artistic, but creative.

I love colours, to make things with my hands as well as to use creative thinking, both in projects and as problem solving. My office is colourful and have a touch of me, and I love that I have the best opportunity to be creative in my profession!

It's important for me to be creative in my work because people are different and my methods need to be different for each person, or group I meet. I need to be able to think outside the box, while knowing the career theories well. Everyone need different things to learn, as well as to think on our own.

I need to have different tools to use in my counseling sessions, and I spend a lot of time finding tools to use. I try to have a lot of different things like: games, cards, puzzles, workbooks, drawings and sayings as well as colourful markers and pencils to use for each specific purpose.

To find some more tips on what I can use, I've started to read a bachelor essay on the creative career counselor in Sweden from 2006.

"It is also important that the career counselor is humble, show compassion and is positive so the client can feel trust. To have knowledge of itself, options and on how to make decisions is fundamental the guidance process and the ability to be creative in it." Carina Paulsson Hagman, Kreativitet i skolans studie- och yrkesvägledning - Creativity in career guidance in schools. She writes about how the students get their first knowledge on how to make a choice when choosing high school program, and if a career counselor adds some creativity to the process the students may use it, and ask for it later on in life as well.

I'm also following a few blogs, one called Syvbloggen by David have a lot of projects as well as the every day work he does on different schools. Right now he's both making films about different jobs, as well as some cards on jobs. Can't wait until I can use them with my students! Thank you for taking the time for these projects David!

But from time-to-time I need to think, on each tool I use and want to use in my work and ask myself  What purpose does this specific thing have? to make it more effective, both when creating something and add something new to my toolbox.