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Jerald
Forster, Professor Emeritus, College of Education, University
of Washington, collaborated with Bernard Haldane in 1987
to establish the Dependable Strengths Project at the University
of Washington. He, along with Bernard Haldane, Jean Haldane,
and Allen Boivin-Brown, later developed and implemented
5-day DSP Workshops designed to prepare professionals
to help others articulate and use their Dependable Strengths.
Jerald was one of the founding members of the Board of
Directors for the Center for Dependable Strengths. |
There are many benefits that accrue from being in a given
profession during an extended lifetime. As an elder in the
field of career guidance and counseling, I have observed and
participated in many changes and developments. I was a fuzzy-cheeked
youngster in 1958 when I took my first graduate course at
the University of Minnesota. The course was titled Occupational
Information. Since that time I have taken many courses related
to career development, counseling, and individual development.
I have also taught courses on these topics hundreds of times
since coming to the University of Washington in 1966.
I have always been interested in the developing professions
of people who facilitate the career development of others.
I was most active in preparing practitioners for professions
in career counseling, rehabilitation counseling, school guidance
counseling and counseling psychology. Then, in the 1990’s,
I noticed a new profession that was developing, the profession
of coaching. I was fascinated with the fact that this profession
focused on the same activities as career counselors, even
though it was not connected to traditional institutions of
higher learning. Practitioners in the coaching profession
become credentialed through institutes and other organizations
formed to prepare them and certify them as legitimate coaches.
I was particularly interested in this phenomenon because I
could see that I had been preparing professionals for forty
years to do what these coaches are now doing. Yet, a whole
new infrastructure has been developed to prepare and monitor
the new profession of coaching.
During the 1980’s, I teamed up with Bernard Haldane
to study and help him improve the methods he had developed
to identify and use Dependable Strengths. Like the coaching
profession, which had not yet been developed, Bernard operated
outside of the university-centered world. He was developing
methods that were directly relevant to career counseling,
career guidance, and vocational psychology, but he was doing
it outside of the community designated to prepare professionals
for credentials. His practices were directly relevant to the
practices of professionals who were called counselors, psychologists,
and later coaches. He was a pioneer in developing practices
that are central to the newly developed coaching profession,
but by the time that profession was initiated, Bernard was
“semi-retired” in the Northwest corner of the
country.
However, some people who know the history of career development
and human resource development do recognize that Bernard was
a real pioneer in the field they now call coaching. An example
of that recognition is demonstrated in the September edition
of the newsletter published by the Five O’Clock Club.
A few months ago, Kate Wendleton, the president of the Five
O’Clock Club contacted the Center for Dependable Strengths
(CDS) and asked us to write an article about Bernard and the
group that is carrying on his work. I agreed to write the
article. When she got my draft of a manuscript, she titled
the article, “The Grandfather of Career Coaching and
His Legacy Today.” Kate also edited the article to emphasize
the fact that the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process
(DSAP) is a 60-year-old “coaching method.” A substantial
number of coaches and other human resource professionals subscribe
to this newsletter. This article will introduce them to Bernard
Haldane’s work. I would expect that many will be interested
in learning more about these methods. If they are serious
about using DSAP, they will need to modify their practices
so they can work with at least four people at a time, since
this is an essential aspect of Bernard’s method.
Hopefully, this widely distributed publication of the Five
O’Clock Club will inform career coaches about DSAP and
the Job Magnet Process. If this happens, there is a good chance
that a lot of people will realize more of their potential
and there will be more happy faces in the world.
Copies of the September issue
of the Five O’Clock Club newsletter are available on
request from the Center for Dependable Strengths, email: ds@highline.edu.
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