Career Practitioners as LifeStyle Editors

The Georgia Career Development Association's

Annual Professional Development Institute

with Dr. Pam Brott

These are tough times for us both personally and professionally. Current political and economic uncertainties present a myriad of challenges to our counseling practice. So, maybe it is time to find new ways to approach career counseling!

Counseling practitioners are in a unique position to expand their career counseling focus from information processor to lifestyle editor. Learn about lifestyle narratives through early recollections, life roles, and story construction to uncover the client’s current story and write future chapters for preferred ways of being based on motivations, interests, and abilities. Experiential activities, such as using your own personal narrative, will engage participants with the principles and practices of being a lifestyle editor. Suggestions for how to take advantage of brief approaches, including single session formats, and how to be culturally sensitive with assessment will be highlighted. The handout provided will include copies of activities and suggested resources.

WORKSHOP INFORMATION:

Friday, April 23, 2010

8:00 Late registration and continental breakfast

8:30-4:00 Program (lunch included with registration)

6 CEU hours available

Pam Brott, PhD, NCC 

With 38 years of professional experience in education, Dr. Pamelia E. Brott profesional career includes teacher, coach, and school counselor in Michigan; a school counselor in Nassau, The Bahamas; and a counselor educator in Texas and Virginia, currently at Virginia Tech –  Northern Virginia Center in Falls Church. She is the author of 27 publications that include book chapters and professional journal articles.  She was co-editor for a special issue of Career Planning and Adult Development Journal that reviewed 40 websites for career counseling and is a former editor of Professional School Counseling. 

Having presented more than 65 programs at state, regional, and national counseling conferences, Dr. Brott has also served as the keynote speaker or invited panel member at six conferences; most recently as a panel member at the National Career Development Association conference in St. Louis, Missouri, on the topic of Innovative Approaches to Career Counseling along with noted names in career counseling as Mark Savickas and David Blustein.  Her professional interests include constructivist career counseling, accountability in counselor training and practice, and professional identity development.

Currently, Dr. Brott is a nominee for President Virginia Counselors Association; served as Vice President for Counselor Education, committee chair for Career Guidance, and Chair of Membership with the Virginia School Counselor Association; and a former President of the Virginia Career Development Association.  She has participated in the National Career Development Association leadership academy.  Dr. Brott is a lifetime member of Chi Sigma Iota, the international honor society for counseling.

Dr. Brott is author of The Storied Approach, a constructivist approach to career counseling.  She has published articles on the topic and presented her approach at conferences and workshops. The Storied Approach has proven to be a successful career counseling approach across the life span and for a variety of client populations. Her most recent presentations deal with the concept of and strategies for career practitioners as lifestyle editors.

Her doctorate is in counseling and counselor education from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (1996), and her  master’s degree in school counseling is from Western Michigan University (1979). She is a National Certified Counselor (NCC) and is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Michigan.