Developing lifelong guidance and counselling prospective by addressing individual and collective experience of humanness, humanity and the world

Vocational guidance and counselling have usually focussed on supporting individuals to develop life projects that give meaning to their work and life. However, the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of today’s world makes it difficult to support sustainable life courses on an individual level. There is a need to address social justice, decent work and sustainable development in guidance and counselling. In order to do so, interventions should include individual and collective experience of humanness, humanity and the world. The article presents a conceptual framework based on these three dimensions and provides benchmarks to design and analyse lifelong guidance interventions by identifying spaces for social transformation, fostering individual and collective identities and the acquisition of lifelong guidance knowledge and skills. The benchmarks are articulated with the three guiding principles of social justice, decent work and sustainable development. Limits of the framework are explored and invite further developments.