Association News

Introducing Ha Nguyen, APCDA’s New Executive Director

Ha Nguyen is a Program Coordinator for Sunshine Vietnam Education and Development and has 20 years of experience working for ChildFund, an international non-profit organization in Vietnam. Her knowledge of management techniques is impressive, and she is eager to apply her  knowledge and experience to managing APCDA’s programs and development. She has begun to learn about us and the projects in which we are currently engaged. She lives in Hanoi and loves reading, drawing, cooking, and travelling.

While working with ChildFund, Ha supported sponsors from a variety of countries who visited Vietnam to learn about the programs they had funded. Through this experience, she learned to work with people from many countries who have different values and goals, and to help them to appreciate the ways in which they can work together with people in Vietnam to achieve their goals. This background is very relevant for working with an association like APCDA that serves many countries and strives to find ways that we can work together to advance career development.

Ha brings a fresh perspective and a lot of energy, and we are happy to have her with us.

Contact Ms. Nguyen at Ha@AsiaPacificCDA.org.

Although Gyulnur Isparova is no longer on the staff of APCDA, she remains a Lifetime Member of the Association and plans to continue serving its interests through various committees and events. We are very grateful to Gyulnur for the hard work and dedication she provided in her years with APCDA and happy that we are not saying goodbye as she refocuses on her future endeavors.

Country/Area Council Summary, November 2021

By Hector Lin

During quarterly meetings, council members take turns to present updates about what is happening, covering topics like learning resources, COVID-19, career development programs, local news and etc. The reports proved colourful, insightful, and helpful resources. A snapshot of the country council reports follows.

Australia listed several new reports, including new information about where the jobs are in Australia.  Also, some exciting conferences are coming soon.

Canada reported on COVID nationwide, career month activities, and some useful labor market resources.

East China is represented by Dr. Brian Schwartz of Suzhou who introduces himself in this report.

Hong Kong is now represented by Mr. Fred Wu who did not have time to prepare reports for this meeting.

Macau reported that there is a move to diversify.  Macau’s economy has always been based on the gaming industry, but they are hoping to build new industries to support that economy.  China has recently granted Macau some land which will help with building other industries in the area.  They have also organized career development activities to facilitate the movement into other industries.

South China explains a new Chinese policy called “Double Deduction Policy" which attempts to reduce the homework for youth and prevent them from spending long hours preparing for entrance exams.

North India summaries a new report which provides insights on the existing career practices and the scope of career guidance in India.  A link to the full report is provided.

Indonesia reports on activities of the Center for Career Development & Assessment (CCDA), a training center at Krida Wacana Christian University 

Japan reported statics on the impact of COVID on GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and Unemployment and activities of the Japan Career Development Association.

Kazakhstan reported on COVID and the return of students to classrooms in October. It also summarizes an OECD report on the impact of COVID on career development in Kazahkstan.

Korea reports on its efforts to live with COVID, including a new Metaverse space for use by universities to allow students to interact socially online.

Malaysia is now represented by the President of the National Career Development Centre Association (NACDA Malaysia). Mr. Baktiar Hasnan.  He reports on labor market data for Malaysia and provides an extensive list of the many career development activities which NACDA has conducted this fall.

New Zealand Reports on the increase in COVID and its impact on work.  The Ministry of Social Development has extended career counseling services, a service which CDANZ members organized in response to the pandemic.

Philippines reports on the current COVID situations and recommendations for steps to assist those who are struggling during this time.

Singapore reported on activities of the People and Career Development Association (PCDA) and provided links to useful information about career development in Singapore.

Taiwan reports that COVID is easing and people are enjoying eating in restaurants.  Career development programs for children through adults are also described. 

USA provides and update on COVID in the US and current trends in the workplace, such as “the great resignation.” It also list useful reports and articles about current career topics.

Vietnam reports on the easing of COVID regulations which trapped migrant workers far from home.  Song An Social Enterprise is sponsoring a national career conference in December and reports that the number of career development activities has increased since the previous year.

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IAEVG Membership – A Benefit of APCDA Membership

Did you know that you automatically become a member of the International Association of Educational and Vocation Guidance (IAEVG) when you join APCDA?  Each year, APCDA pays dues to IAEVG for all of our members. 

IAEVG has a 75-year history of providing global leadership in and advocating for guidance by promoting ethical, socially just, and best practices throughout the world so that career, educational and vocational guidance and counselling is available to all citizens from competent and qualified practitioners.

This year, IAEVG has also chosen APCDA to host one of its 2 annual conferences.  We are excited about working together with IAEVG for our May 2022 Conference because they bring experts from around the world to our conference.  For example, if you attended our 2015 conference in Japan, you will remember Keynote Speaker Dr. Raimo Vuorinen, who spoke to us about Developing New Policies and Services for Career Development and Counselling by Structured National and International Co-operation.  Dr. Vuorinen was formerly the Director of the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network (ELGPN), which makes him the perfect choice for a keynoter at our 2022 conference on Embracing Lifelong Career Development.  Dr. Vuorinen also recommended that we initiate a glossary of career planning terms.  In May we will proudly show him that we now are working on our 3rd edition of this glossary and have translations into many of the languages of our member countries.

Behind the scenes, IAEVG and many of its members have helped in the development of APCDA.  When we want to develop resources for our members, such as our Ethical Guidelines, we turn first to IAEVG for guidance.  As the oldest career development association that is truly international, the materials provided by IAEVG are very relevant and helpful in jump-starting our development.  If you look at the IAEVG Scientific Committee page (the people who will select the Research Sessions and Poster Sessions for our conference), you will see many APCDA members.  We are excited to welcome all of these experts to our conference again this year.

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APCDA Partnering with IAEVG for 2022 Hybrid Conference

The APCDA 2022 Conference just doubled in content and value - twice the number of presentations and keynotes for the same price!

The International Association of Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) has a 70-year history of working internationally to stimulate career development practices and services.  It provides global leadership in and advocates for guidance by promoting ethical, socially just, and best practices throughout the world so that career, educational and vocational guidance and counselling is available to all citizens from competent and qualified practitioners.  Sharing an interest in Asia and Singapore, they are happy to join our APCDA conference and add their own expertise.  We are excited to add their events to ours without changing the cost for our attendees. 

All presentations will be offered during the week of May 16-20, which is entirely virtual, and devoted to presentations by members of either association.  All proposals will be collected by APCDA.  The Research Sessions and Posters will be sent to the IAEVG Scientific Committee for selection.  The Practice and Skill-Builder sessions will be sent to the APCDA Selection Committee. We will have an equal number of time slots for each of these sets of proposals.  Posters will be displayed in the “Exhibitors” area for the duration of the conference. 

During the week of May 23-27, APCDA will be primarily responsible for events scheduled between 9 am and 1 pm Singapore Time, and IAEVG will be primarily responsible for the events scheduled between 2 and 6 pm.  For those who are attending virtually, this makes sense because people in the Americas are more likely to be awake during Singapore’s morning hours and people in Europe are more likely to be awake during Singapore’s afternoons.  People living in Asia or the Pacific should be awake for both.

We invite you to read the newest IAEVG newsletter.

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President’s Message

by Satomi Yaji Chudasama

As we embark on the new year for APCDA, I am honored to serve you as President along with the new leadership team. Before thinking ahead, I would like to first thank Sing Chee Wong who will serve APCDA as Past-President and outgoing Past-President Woongtae Kim as well as the entire leadership team from the past year for their outstanding leadership and contributions to APCDA. Some of those examples include: 

APCDA hosted a successful virtual conference in 2021. The most highly rated 2021 presentations are now available free to members on the APCA website. The 2022 conference planning team has been working hard to prepare for a hybrid conference. 

The Program Committee coordinated two quality webinars each month: one free to members and one for a small fee. This effort will continue in the coming year.

APCDA has developed useful tools for the Asia Pacific region, such as the Ethical Guidelines, Competencies for Career Services, and Glossary of Career Development terms which is available in several languages on our website.  This coming year, we will be working on about 60 new glossary terms. 

We continue to gather information about career development in the Asia Pacific region and facilitate communication and cooperation among member countries.

All of these are a sample of hard work from the leadership team and committee members as well as idea contributions from APCDA members. We all come together to make APCDA an amazing, international organization that has earned a 4-star approval rating from our members. As we look ahead this coming year, I invite you to share your ideas and interests with us and get involved! APCDA offers a number of professional development opportunities. And one of them is to become part of various committees. This is a great way to not only reflect your ideas and contribute to the organization but also get to know other APCDA members on a different level. As you can see in the new Local Organization Educational Program (LOEP) Accreditation Project as an example, APCDA continues to grow and make stronger impacts in the region (and beyond), you can be part of the movement! 

Alongside the stellar staff of APCDA (Executive Director Gulnur Isparova, Financial Administrator Marilyn Maze, and General Administrator Emily Lizada), I am fortunate to have a strong leadership team including our Past President Sing Chee Wong (Singapore), President-Elect Momoko Asaka (Japan), Secretary Dr. Jose Domene (Canada), Treasurer Dr. Constance Pritchard (USA), Committee Leaders and Country/Area Representatives. I look forward to a great year with all of you!

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Committee Council Report for July, 2021

By Allan Gatenby

The Awards and Scholarships Committee is eager to raise the visibility of these two efforts.  They have since met with the Country Council to ask that each country nominate at least one applicant for a scholarship.  They are also looking for ways to stimulate interest in nominating professionals for the awards.

The Ethics & Standards Committee was happy to offer webinars on ethical dilemmas in the first part of this year and to have released a new version of the Glossary.  The next project this committee has been working on is to develop an accreditation process for local organizations which offer educational programs in our field.  As an international association with 22 member countries which speak a variety of languages and provide training in different ways to address local issues, it is difficult for us to develop standards that work for every member country.  But it is possible for a team of our members to review an educational program and see if it includes the competencies we believe should be covered in that setting and has sufficient controls on quality.  The new project is beginning the process of reviewing an educational program offered by the first local association that applied for accreditation.

The APCD Journal is looking forward to a September issue which will contain 3 articles and editor’s notes. They are also planning a special issue on the use of Chaos Theory in Career Development.  Dr. Poh Li Lau will be the guest editor of this special issue and will soon be putting out a call for papers.

The Membership Committee reported that we now have 291 active members.  This is a slight decrease since April, but this may reflect seasonal variations and the lack of an in-person conference this year.  The Membership Committee is considering ways to reverse this trend.  The Membership Committee has consistently hosted New Member Orientation and Potential Member Meetups in alternating months.  It has also provided Member Recognition articles consistently. One of the Co-Chairs, Dr. José Domene of Canada, is stepping down as Co-Chair to take the position of APCDA Secretary on October 1, so he has been replaced by Mr. Kunimitsu Kuki of Japan.  The other Co-Chair is Ms. Soonhoon Ahn of the USA.  Committee members include Ms. Urja Acharya (Nepal), Ms. Jennifer Nguyen (Vietnam), Ms. Natalie Kauffman (USA), and Dr. Lisa Raufman (USA).

The Public Relations Committee has continued to encourage its members to support other committees by promoting webinars, the nominations process; and news blogs on Social Media.

The Research Committee planned and held a recent webinar on Researching Career Development Issues and is collaborating with the Journal to encourage those who presented research at the 2021 APCDA Conference to submit to the Journal for publication.

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Discovering What People Value about APCDA

By Dr. Marilyn Maze

At the beginning of November 2020, we added Google Analytics to our website at the request of the Qatar Foundation, because they wanted to know how many people download the Arabic version of the Glossary, which they translated for us.  Google Analytics is a free service that counts the number of visits to webpages.  It reports on:

• Views: The number of times anyone looked at a page
• Users:  The number of people who looked at the page
• New Users: The number of unique people who looked at a page (people like staff are only counted once)
• Views per User: the average number of times each person looked at a page
• Average Engagement Time:  The average number of seconds each person spent on a page.

Of course, these data can be misleading.  Staff visit many pages to check/update them, and those views get counted.  When the phone rings or a person gets coffee, the software may indicate that a user “viewed” a page for a long time, when no one was actually looking at the screen.  Everyone lands on the welcome page when they first come to our website (unless they are coming from a link in an email or news blog), so that page is, of course, our most visited.  But this data does give us a way to measure what people care about and how often they visit our website.  The data below reflect 2 months (November and December 2020).

In the table below you see totals by Main Menu topic for each of the statistics provided.  Looking at the “Views” column to see which part of our website had the most use, we see the most views in Webinars (which is called Events to include the New Member and Non-Member Meetings). People looked at large numbers of recorded webinars, as well as registered for six live events during that period.  For the second and third columns, totaling these data is not really correct statistically, because the total counts the same person every time they visit another page. But the New User numbers do give us some idea about the volume of people visiting each part of our website.  The Welcome area attracted the largest number of new users.  During November, a lot of people were looking at our Call for Proposals, so that part was visited by the next largest number of new users, then Country/Area Information and News are tied for 3rd place. 

	Views	Users	New Users	Views per user	Engagement time
Welcome	1558	951	586	1.5	44.3
Conference	1560	1062	576	1.2	35.6
Membership	930	514	98	1.6	37.2
Webinars/Events	1853	860	385	2.3	38.9
News	1066	726	476	1.5	28.7
Resources	349	233	94	1.8	16.6
Country Information	1025	747	477	1.4	40.1
Profile Management	508	195	58	2.2	44.6

What, specifically, were people doing in these sections of the website?  For each of these menu topics, we have selected the most popular pages under that topic.

Under the Welcome topics, we have a lot of information about APCDA as an association.  This table shows which pages in that area were visited by the most people.  We can see that a lot of people visited the “About” page which contains our Vision and Mission, and they visited our Leadership page which contains bios for each of our leaders.  A noticeable number also considered donating to APCDA, although only a couple did so.

Page	Users
Welcome	669
About APCDA	87
Leadership	55
History of APCDA	43
Committees	27
Contact Us	24
Donate	18

Under the Conferences topic, of course the Call for Proposals and the 2021 Conference received the most attention.

Page	Users
Call for Proposals	285
2021 Conference	237
Scholarships	197
2020 Conference	79
2019 Conference Presentations	53

People also looked at past conferences and at other information about the conference such as Scholarships, Awards, Proposal Tips, and Presentations Tips.  They also looked at Past Award Recipients.

In the Membership area, the largest number of people looked at the Join-Renew pages.  But they also looked at the Benefits page, each of our Member Organizations, and our Legacy Partners.  Members who log in see the Member Directory, so that page was well used.

Page	Users
Join-Renew	81
Member Benefits	79
Member Directory	50
Member Organizations	32
Legacy Partners	25

Under Webinars, our November and December live events offerings were, naturally, very popular.  But many people also looked at our libraries of past webinars and watched many recorded webinars.

Page	Users
ReimagineU (event registration and recorded webinar)	138
December APCDA Meetup	132
The Past, Present, and Future of Career Counseling	101
Recorded Webinars	62
Free Webinars	50
Live Webinars	44
Recent Webinars	40
November New Member Orientation	21

Each of our News pages was visited by large numbers of people, including the Through COVID series which, by this time, was old news. And 25 people decided to add their names to our mailing list.

Page	Users
Announcements	232
Career Trends	175
Association News	151
Member Recognition	51
Through COVID	50
Subscribe	25

Our Resources were not visited as often as other topics, but the Journal and each of the past issues of the Journal had many visits.  The Arabic version of the Glossary, which was announced on November 15, drew a substantial number of people. Our other glossaries, ethics, and competencies also were used.

Page	Users
Journal	52
Arabic Glossary	35
APCDJ Sept 2020	23
Glossary	18
Ethical Guidelines	16
Competencies	15
APCDJ Subscription	10

Many people visited our Country/Area Information pages and every country had several visits with people clearly reading several articles on the pages that interested them.

Page	Users
Philippines	149
Singapore	73
Vietnam	52
Australia	48
North India	42

The last section of the webinar is not part of the menu, but rather a service that is offered by the website.  Each person in our database can see their own profile, and while looking at the Member Directory, they can view the profiles of others.  Some people also asked for help with passwords, told our system not to send them any more emails, or looked at invoices (probably in the process of paying). 

Page	Users
Member profile (someone else's profile)	57
My profile (self-profile)	51
Reset password request	20
Unsubscribe from emails	16
Invoice (for payment)	10

In addition, 150 people used the website Search function.

These data provide important information about how our website is used and which parts of our website are valued most.  We plan to continue to study these data over time and see what more we can learn.  Given the amount of work we put into maintaining and updating the pages on the website, we are happy to know people are reading our webiste.

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Career Support for Arabic Youth Boosted by QCDC’s Arabic Edition of Career Development Terms Glossary

Initiative part of QCDC’s ongoing efforts to promote Arabic language resources

Doha, Qatar, 15 November 2020: A successful collaboration between Qatar Career Development Center (QCDC) and the Asia Pacific Career Development Association (APCDA) has culminated in the Arabization of the Glossary of Career Development Terms, which will benefit Arabic speakers and professionals around the world. View the announcement here.

Primarily intended to serve as a resource for professionals in the career development and vocational assessment field, the Arabic guide will assist career counselors, academic advisors, career practitioners, human resource professionals, trainers and teachers working with Qatari and Arab youth, across the region and globally, in planning their career paths.

Given the diversity of the field, the glossary is an important step toward establishing a shared understanding of commonly used terms and phrases. The Arabic edition will be dynamic and continue to develop and grow as experts suggest improvements or additions to its contents.

QCDC, a Qatar Foundation (QF) member, has long endeavored to address the gap in Arabic resources in the field of career guidance and professional development, which continues to pose an obstacle to QCDC’s mission to provide support services for Arab youth.

Mr. Abdulla Al-Mansoori, Director, QCDC, said: “Through this latest initiative, QCDC has made an important contribution to the promotion of the Arabic language, offering a resource to Arabic speakers and professionals around the world for creating impactful content and training programs. The achievement will empower career development experts to better guide our youth, not only in Qatar but all across the Arab World, on their ambitious career journeys.”

APCDA is a non-profit association incorporated for educational purposes in the state of Maryland, USA, providing training for specialists engaged in facilitating career development in the Asia Pacific region. Conferences, workshops and networking events enable the exchange of knowledge and collaboration on professional projects.

The initial development of the Glossary in English stemmed from APCDA’s objective for the Asia Pacific region to speak the same language related to career planning and development. The English language glossary was completed in 2017, with the aim of eventually offering versions in all languages spoken by its members.

Gulnur Ismayil-Isparova, Executive Director, APCDA, said: We embrace more than 300 members from over 20 countries around the world under the APCDA umbrella. Association is a wide multicultural and multilingual platform. It is important for us to ensure the exchange of ideas and best practices is communicated smoothly. The Glossary gives us chance to understand each other and effectively serve our clients in various corners of our regional coverage. We are thankful to Qatar Career Development Center for this valuable contribution and opening access to the APCDA glossary for Arabic speaking nationalities.”

As a member of APCDA, QCDC has traditionally participated in their annual conference and the publication of an Arabic edition of the glossary was therefore the next logical step, which enables APCDA to now offer this important resource to all its members.

In recent years, QF has increased its efforts to promote Arabic, the world’s sixth most spoken language. QF has launched several initiatives to address the challenges of modernizing academic programs and incentivizing linguistic institutions to keep abreast of technological advances in a bid to promote classical Arabic, which faces intense competition from colloquial dialects.

In keeping up with that mission and as part of its own efforts to promote career guidance resources in Arabic, QCDC was the first institution to offer the Career Advisor Training Course in both Arabic and English, in Qatar and the GCC region. The program aims to equip professionals with the basic skills and knowledge to offer career planning and counseling services to guide Qatari youth to embark on career paths. More than 150 participants have successfully graduated from the program to date.

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Announcing the New

APCDA Ethical Guidelines

Adopted October 2020 by the APCDA Board

The APCDA Board wishes to express its sincere gratitude to the Ethics Taskforce which has just completed its work of reviewing the original APCDA Ethical Guidelines, questioning every word, comparing our statements to those our other career practitioner associations, and including wording appropriate to the many countries that are represented by APCDA.  This taskforce consisted of Dr. Joseph Chan (Hong Kong), Dr. Vandana Gambhir-Chopra (India), Leonila Urrea (Philippines), Gulnur Ismayil-Isparova (Azerbaijan), and Dr. Marilyn Maze (USA). 

According to Dr. Brian Hutchison, “Upon reflection, this is what makes us a professional body in that we are a band of similar and dissimilar professionals in so many intricate ways that only an agreed upon set of principles, grounded in common values makes us one body.  It does not feel like hyperbole to me to say that today I think APCDA became a professional organization in the truest sense of the word.”

We recommend that each member read these ethical guidelines and think about their implications for practice.  In order to make them come to life for our members, Dr. Chopra has planned a series of Member Webinars in 2021 to review case studies related to ethics and discus our real life examples of time when ethics may get trampled by expediency or financial constraints.  We hope you will join these webinars/

You can find the APCDA Ethical Guidelines here, which is under Resources on our website.

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APCDA Career Services Competencies

April 2020

After months of work, the Standards Taskforce is proud to announce the new list of APCDA Career Services Competencies.  This list is valuable for improving your skills and those of your co-workers.  Find out which competencies you have and which could use improvement.

This Competencies List is intended to be used in conjunction with the APCDA Glossary of Career Development Terms.  The definitions of terms will be helpful in understanding these competencies. 

These Competencies reference the APCDA Ethical Guidelines, which are available here: https://AsiaPacificCDA.org/ethical-guidelines

This list will be revised as needed.  Suggestions for additions and revisions should be submitted to Ethics@AsiaPacificCDA.org.

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