Promoting career choice, employment and mental health with group interventions among students

Introduction  Many young workers often experience unsatisfactory employment and poor work socialization, which may lead to problems in mental health. Preparedness for work life transitions can be increased with group interventions applying techniques of social modelling and active learning. Preparedness for career transitions comprises both career transition self-efficacy and preparedness for setbacks during transitions or career changes. There are two critical transitions for young people entering the work life.  In the first critical phase young students choose their career and field of study. The second critical phase is the challenging transition from vocational studies to employment.    

Methods  Two preventive group methods were developed for promoting career choice, employment and mental health among young people entering the work life. The aim is to promote active role and needed critical skills during the two different transition processes towards the labor markets, respectively. The effects of the interventios were investigated in two randomly assigned field experimental studies (RCT study) during 2000 - 2005, involving 1034 students in basic education and 400 students in vocational schools, respectively.    

Results  Two field experiments (RCT-trials), with follow-up periods of 7 months to one year demonstrated that increasing career choice preparedness and  employment preparedness resulted in better employment outcomes and better mental health, especially among students who were initially at risk for depression.    

Discussion  These group interventions have been published and they are disseminated widely into practice in Finland. Finnish Institute for Occupational Health provides training of group trainers and distributes method publications. For example, after the publication of the School-to-Work -method in 2002, over 350 teachers and other persons have been trained to become trainers for the method and over 14 000 participant''s workbooks have been distributed.