Work skills for disadvantaged and unprepared youth and adults

The paper considers vocational preparation and career guidance for individuals who are disadvantaged and otherwise unprepared for employment. From the vocational counselling literature, suggestions are taken for an expanded role for counsellors, and models are considered which have emphasized the need to focus on both personal and social skills as well as work skills, in training and retraining. From the vocational rehabilitation literature, the importance of work skills training, and identification of necessary skills for training are examined, with particular reference to the research of Mueller (e.g., 1988) and his associates. Thus, both the vocational counselling and vocational rehabilitation fields provide guidance for the vocational training of disadvantaged and unprepared youth and adults.The two reported studies were carried out as part of the second author's doctoral dissertation under a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship and were funded in part by Western Industrial Research and Training Centres. More detail on survey inventories and results can be obtained from the second author: Dr. H.H. Mueller, Psychology Department, Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, 10230 — 111 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T5G 0B7.