Founding the CDI
The Careers Profession Task Force was set up by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2009 to provide a vision for high-quality CEIAG and make recommendations to ensure careers professionals in England have the knowledge and skills required to enable young people to make informed decisions about career pathways and develop the ability to manage and plan their career and personal development.
The task force published Towards a Strong Careers Profession Report in 2010 and recommended that an overarching professional body be created to advance the professionalism of the sector and take forward the other recommendations in the report. These recommendations were:
Establishment of a common code of ethical practice;
Establishment of a Register of Practice for careers professionals;
Establishing minimum entry level qualification for careers professionals of QCF Level 6 and a commitment to Continuous Professional Development (CPD);
Transition arrangements for those practising below Level 6;
Development of a single career progression framework including a work-based route;
Demonstration of a commitment to Continuous Professional Development;
Initial training and CPD to include a focus on LMI and STEM;
Random sampling of self-declared minimum level of CPD;
Maintenance and strengthening of the careers education and guidance partnership model;
Overarching national kite mark to validate the different CEIAG awards;
The need for providers of career guidance in schools, colleges and work-based learning to meet a nationally approved quality standard;
Sharing of good practice;
Thematic reviews by Ofsted;
Government commissioned reports on progress towards achievements of the recommendations.
This led to the creation of the Careers Profession Alliance brought together the Association of Careers Education and Guidance (ACEG); Association of Careers Professionals International (ACPI); Institute for Career Guidance (ICG) and National Association for Educational Guidance for Adults (NAEGA). In April 2013 this became the Career Development Institute (CDI), bringing together these four major bodies and starting a new era for career development within the UK. It provided the opportunity for all career development practitioners to see themselves as having more in common than they have of difference and for the sector to have a single authoritative voice.
In 2015, Claire Johnson and Siobhan Neary wrote an article for the NICEC Journal on the progress that had been made, Enhancing professionalism – progressing the career development sector
Subsequent changes in government and their policies have meant that some of the recommendations have taken several years to achieve but the above are all now in place and continue to develop as the sector evolves.