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Introduction to Career Planning and
Adult Development Journal on The Influence of Bernard Haldane
on the Profession of Career Development
It has been my privilege and pleasure to guest-edit this
collection of articles on Bernard Haldane and his impact on
career development. The authors are a delightful group of
people to work with – all are intelligent and caring
individuals. I’m tempted to speculate that it is because,
having experienced and worked with the Dependable Strengths
process, they know their own strengths, are respectful of
others’ and have developed more than the usual tolerance
for ambiguity.
When I first surveyed the articles as they came in, I was
not surprised at the high quality of writing or the quantity
of what there was to say about Bernard’s long history
of work, but as I reviewed the whole, I was touched by the
depth of feeling they represent. It will become apparent to
readers of these articles that all of these writers care enormously
about their work and that we all hold Bernard Haldane in unusually
high regard.
We see him, not only as a thinker who meticulously and persistently,
over many years, developed this wonderful process that brings
out the best in people, but also as one who shared their caring
concern for other human beings. In some articles, the caring
and concern leap out for the reader, in others, the caring
is in the choice and detail of the stories told and in the
successes achieved by the participants in the process.
In reading these articles, I’ve been struck by the
prevalence of the miners’ strike story. Each version
re-told by a writer is a little different and meaningful in
a different way to the person who tells it. The different
versions seem to reflect the tellers as much as they recreate
the version that Bernard told so many times. It is fascinating
to see the different lessons that can be drawn from the same
story, by adding our own unique experience to it.
In much the same way, I see Bernard’s influence on
career development. I imagine Bernard at the headwaters of
a large river many years ago, changing and influencing the
flow of the river near its source. Now, as each of us dips
into that river, we draw out what becomes our version of career
development, because the water each of us has is shaped by
the form of our unique vessel that contains the water, reflecting
our own image and contribution. But the very water that we
are drawing out of that river was influenced by Bernard’s
ideas and his work over the course of many years. Others have
of course made lasting contributions also, but Bernard may
be unique in the number of years he actively contributed to
influencing the flow of that river.
The articles following clearly show Bernard’s influence,
beginning in the 1940s and continuing to and beyond his passing
in 2002. That his influence is likely to continue into the
future is apparent in these articles also. Very few people
have that kind of perseverance, not to mention enduring influence
both directly and indirectly, on the lives and work of thousands
upon thousands of people. While his own work was primarily
in the United States, it has been taken by facilitators into
other countries, and it continues to spread in the form of
the Dependable Strengths Articulation process.
Note: It will be useful for readers to know that Bernard
did not hesitate to change terminology or re-work any parts
of his process that didn’t seem to be working. Those
changes are proof of his commitment to continual improvement
of his theories and techniques, however, it can lead to confusion
of terminology, depending on what version of his writings
that one is reading.
As a small example, in the early 1990s, Bernard was calling
his process the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process,
abbreviated to DSAP. By the late 90s, he was calling it simply
Dependable Strengths Articulation, shortened to DSA. We’ve
tried to maintain a consistency of style among the articles,
yet respecting the chronology of Bernard’s changing
ideas by sticking with DSAP in articles about times when Bernard
was using that term. Articles that describe a more recent
application use the later DSA terminology Bernard used, but
we’ve tried not to mess with authors who write of Bernard
in times before we were fledged!
The Articles
In the first article, Jean Haldane explains that in their
35 years together, she and Bernard shared “his work,”
“her work,” and “their work,” and
she also describes how Bernard “became” his work.
Jean chronicles many of the developments in Bernard’s
life work as only a gifted story teller can, by painting verbal
pictures of Bernard at work, and by describing the parade
of different individuals and groups who Bernard worked with:
politically-connected executives, WWII veterans, those from
a state’s unemployment “dead files,” church
groups, refugees, women’s groups, corporate and government
professionals, and on and on. Through the stories, we can
see the growth of “the process” that would become
known as Dependable Strengths, and the importance of Bernard’s
insight that “ordinary people had within their experience
a core of dependable strengths.”
Dick Knowdell, himself an influential professional in career
development (and publisher of this Career Planning and Adult
Development Journal, San Jose, CA), writes of Bernard’s
early influence on himself and on his subsequent development
of the Motivated Skills Card Sort Instrument.
Jerald Forster, emeritus professor of educational psychology
at the University of Washington, began working with Bernard
in 1987. He writes of Bernard’s early commitment to
the principles of “positive psychology,” long
before there was a name for this movement. He carefully follows
the detail of Bernard’s development of what we now know
as Dependable Strengths through a thicket of terminology changes,
as Bernard worked and re-worked the details of the process
until it reached a high level of effectiveness for enormously
varied groups of “ordinary” people.
Sam Sackett, now in Thailand and retired from a long and
varied career in academics and career development, writes
thoughtfully and with emotion of his years with Bernard Haldane
Associates, the business which Bernard formed in the late
1940s and sold in 1974.
A latent emotion also is discernable within the article by
retired Everett, WA high school counselor Allen Boivin-Brown,
who writes of the high school students in the “alternative”
classes, who benefited greatly by Bernard’s focus and
his ability to bring out the best in anyone – even down-trodden
adolescents.
Cal Crow, who directs the Center for Learning Connections,
Des Moines, WA, writes intelligently and passionately about
his work, and explains the context of Bernard’s efforts,
showing that Bernard’s Dependable Strengths method is
fully compatible with learning theory and is directly applicable
to the learning AND the education of high school students.
Jim Baxter, state supervisor for career guidance in Idaho,
was kind enough to coordinate the writing efforts of three
others in addition to himself, thus his article is actually
one of four articles on the same topic. The use of a Dependable
Strengths program in Idaho schools, was cited as “one
of the principle reasons …[their schools] were named
by the Department of Education and the NCRVE as a national
Exemplary Career Counseling program in 1997.” Co-authors
included Susan Hodgin, language arts teacher, DebAnn Rippy,
career counselor, and Ernie Biller, professor of educational
psychology at the University of Idaho, who wrote on his study,
which looked at the career exploration program in the schools
as a whole.
Sharon Allen Felton, long-time facilitator and counselor,
who now counsels at Bellevue Community College, in Bellevue,
WA, wrote about her use of Dependable Strengths with non-traditional
students in a community college, where her results were predictably
surprising and positive.
Susan Terry, who directs the Center for Career Services at
the University of Washington Seattle, has seen the value of
Dependable Strengths as it has been used with college students.
Also, in the last eight years, Dependable Strengths has become
fundamental to both philosophy and programming within the
Center.
Cheryl Roberts, currently a vice president (Instruction and
Student Services) at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR,
describes her use of Dependable Strengths in her work with
teams in corporate organizations.
Sheri Adams, instructor at both the University of Washington
College of Education, Seattle and Highline Community College
in Des Moines, WA, writes about her follow-up work with professionals
who took a Dependable Strengths program she gave six years
previously. The results she describes are predictably effective
and affective. Her participants made positive changes, both
short-term and long-term, after participating in a Dependable
Strengths program.
Jennifer Tallack, who directs the Dependable Strengths Foundation
in Johannesburg, South Africa, wrote about Bernard’s
and Jean’s trip to South Africa and the subsequent training
of more than 500 participants in Dependable Strengths.
Vic Snyder, career counselor at the University of Washington
Center for Career Services, also wrote about the training
experience in South Africa, from his perspective as one of
the Seattle Master Trainers who was invited to participate
as a trainer.
Tom Washington, private career counselor and author based
in Bellevue, Washington, collected a series of fascinating
vignettes of Bernard’s interactions with others, many
of whom are career professionals themselves.
I am enormously honored to have been able to work with each
of these wonderful individuals, and to help continue bringing
this good work to light.
Kate Duttro, D.Ed.
Career Counselor
Center for Career Services, University of Washington
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