The Vocation Incubator
The Elixir Vocation Incubator is a series of workshops and structured homework excercises that are built into existing life skills and career development classes. The process is facilitated by expert entreprenuership and innovation coaches who engage young people in a very pertinant and robust approach to career development while supportng them to reach formal career development milstones.
The key milestonesare as follows:
-Choosing Subjects in Grade 10
-Completing Work experience and applying for university in Grade 11
-Deciding whether to go on Gap Year and defer or complete studies in grade 12
The Elixir Takes students through the following key stages of Vocation Development
Stage 1-Explore
The Elixir Experience is a wilderness based development experience that is incorporated into students Grade 10 outdoor education campos. The process involves eco-facilitation, group/individual coaching and training in specific developmental practices. The core focus of the methodology is based around using nature as a vehicle to reconnect each student to their sense of purpose and as a guide in how to develop careers.The key outcome is a personal vision that is based on a enhanced awareness of personal passions,values and abilities
Stage 2-Clarify
The clarification stage requires the students to distil there inspirational personal vision into clear objectives and a corresponding personal development plan. Through an effective personal development framework, the students are able to clarify their core life goals and voctional objectives. This process fosters a powerful "line of sight" between personal visions and key academic and extra curricular responsibilities. Further to this, the process helps them to understand the trade-offs around time, energy and finances such that they understand key life choices more effectively.
Stage3-Research
This process helps students identify the vaious work experience oportunties that will support the exploration of potential vocations.Using a framework based around personal passions,values and abilities, the coaching helps studnets identify out of the potential 40,000 careers, the options that support their key life goals most effectively. The workshops deals with fears and concerns that young people have aout entring the world of work while eqquiping them to make the most of the experence.They are gven a research worksheet that allows them to facilitate a more purpose driven and structured approach to their time with a host company.
Stage 4-Innovation
Students who have the expectation of employment based on having a degree/certification are not equipping themselves to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Statistics suggest that only 4% of all new products and services that are offered by companies are in response to proactive research and development. The other 96% come in response to changes in the economy, shifts in trends and turbulence that companies could not predict or plan for. This creates a significant challenge but also an opportunity for people to innovate and propose value propositions. The key focus of this stage is around building awareness around innovation, entreprenuership and appreciating that vocation development is about solving life's challenges creatively. Students are given well regarded creative problem solving models to identify innovations based on their limited time with a company.
Step 5-Action
This step inolves learning to communicate a key value proposition to stake holders. Parents are essentially investing in their childrens future and they want to feel that there is going to be a good return on investment. Universities are deciding whether to invest in a student as a way of enhancing their insitutions reputation and credibility for being a centre of excellence.Employers want to know that employees are going to add value. The key outomes of this stage is for young people to write a proposal to their work experiences employers outlining a key innovation that they idintified on their work experience and there core value proposition. This is taken further whereby stdents have to propose to parents why they should invest in there completing a particualr degree and how it relates to a broader vocation development strategy.The awareness from this process helps sudents in heir application to tertiary degree's. This process is usually completed as part of career evenings ar schools.It gives young people the awareness that degree's cost sigificant amounts of money,time and energy and that they need to make the most of them. It alo allows parents to understand what they need to do to support their children through the process.
Stage 6-Transformation