Event Plan
Evidence has shown that involving parents for college selection and career guidance is fruitful for a brighter future of their children. Involving parents is valuable since they help their child in considering options for career development and influence the way the child has to make transitions from high-school to college, their career determination, exploration, consideration, and self-belief (Oomen, 2016). The school counselors help the parents to create an impact on their child’s prospective exploration in various ways, such as skill acquirement, safety from undesirable experiences, increasing rational thinking, improving character development, strengthening personal accountability and accomplishment of parents’ personal goals. Studies have also shown that students themselves were affirmative of the positive effects of school counselors in helping them gain career guidance thorough organization of career days and conferences along with the direction of occupational guidance information for making intelligent decisions (Amoah, Kwofie & Kwofie, 2015).

This paper discusses a parent, family engagement event that would be about career counseling of students and their career readiness when entering a college. This event would be directed towards the families so that they can be involved within their child’s plan. The teachers and counselors will introduce the programs to parents with information for student support in career exploration. The career assistance will mainly include guiding students and parents on college programs and academic curriculum. This guidance is given, to prepare students for several aspects of college life, like taking admission tests, giving details about financing needs for secondary education and training, special workshops on personal development along with presentations, and provision of specialized counseling to the students with individual attention (US Department of Education, 2007). The event is going to serve parents and families so that they are fully aware of their children’s future choices and whether those choices would be viable for them.

Timeline

Meetings would be arranged with the team so that the program and family needs could be devised properly ahead of time. The event would be arranged in January 2021, and for that, meetings would be scheduled to start in September 2020 and are likely to be stretched till January next year. Initially, it would be monthly meetings in September, October, and November, but in December, the meetups will be held once a week throughout the month. These weekly meetings would take care of the extra details such as when the message to the parents about informing the event should take place, what minute arrangements of the seating would be included etc.

September meeting: In this meeting, the initial rough draft of the event would be developed with the help of brainstorming sessions involving all the participants. Budgeting needs will also be considered.

October meeting: In this meeting, all of the group members would be invited again to generate ideas about parental sessions and career counseling topics/programs.

November meeting: In this meeting, group members would be assigned duties at certain points within the premises. For example, if workshops are to be held in different classes, the welcoming and shifting services to those rooms will be assigned. Similarly, all other members would be allocated duties as well.

December meeting no 1: The first week of December will focus on the flyer designs and modes of communications through which the information about the event would be given to the parents and families.

December meeting no 2: The second week would emphasize on people responsible for disseminating that information via emails or...…of Event

After the event, a feedback or survey form would be given to the parents to be filled out so that an assessment is made whether the event was successful, how helpful it was for the parents, and whether it should be held next year. The survey would be as follows (Survey Monkey, 2020):

1. What did you like about the event?

_______________________________________________________________

2. What did you dislike about the event?

_______________________________________________________________

3. In your opinion, how organized was the event?

· Extremely organized

· Very organized

· Somewhat organized

· Not so organized

· Not at all organized

4. How friendly was the staff?

· Extremely friendly

· Very friendly

· Somewhat friendly

· Not so friendly

· Not at all friendly

5. How helpful was the staff?

· Extremely helpful

· Very helpful

· Somewhat helpful

· Not so helpful

· Not at all helpful

6. Before the event, did you get all the needed information?

· All of the information

· Most of the information

· Some of the information

· A little of the information

· None of the information

7. Was the event too short or too long?

· Too long

· Just about right

· Too short

8. Would you recommend this event to your friend or family members?

1 (not at all likely to recommend) to 5 (most likely to recommend)

_______________________________________________________________

9. Overall, rating of the event? From 1 (poor) to 10 (Excellent)

_______________________________________________________________

10. Anything else you would like to share about the event?

________________________________________________________________

Content Shared with Families (attached in appendix)