You are invited to participate in the 2024 OCDA Conference on May 30th and 31st at Ohio Dominican University in Columbus, Ohio where practitioners, scholars, and leaders will come together to learn from and engage with active members of the career community.
This year’s conference theme, Strive to Thrive – The Impact of Wellness on Career Development comprises three core principles (see below) that will also serve as our guidance for this year’s call for proposals. If you or members in your network are interested in sharing a program, practice, intervention, or research around the topics of career, workforce, talent, and professional development, please submit a proposal by March 7, 2024 at 11:59pm EST. Registration cost is waived for up to two presenters.
Conference Registration and Call for Proposals:
https://forms.gle/f41bzCXjUkxLP53w9
Or refer to the OCDA Conference website at
https://Ocdaonline.org/conference-news/13307069
PRINCIPLE #1: DEI - THE INTERSECTION OF DEI AND MENTAL HEALTH
Career development serves as a cornerstone of one’s life-career success across multicultural and intercultural space. As practitioners working within the Career Development space, it’s important to recognize the impact of the current social justice landscape on mental health and wellness and how we can advocate for fair and equitable processes. Under this theme, we focus on 1) How to assist our clients as they navigate career transitions with adaptability and growth; 2) Develop inclusive leadership skills; 3) Foster emotional intelligence in the workplace.
PRINCIPLE #2: WELLNESS IN THE WORKPLACE AND IN OUR PERSONAL LIVES
Mental health in the workplace is a hot topic these days. Increased workload and performance expectations, coupled with a lot of self-reflection in a post-pandemic world, has created a perfect storm in which we struggle to provide support to our clients in a constantly changing workspace against achieving true work life balance. Self-care is an important aspect of personal development and strategies to navigate the ups and downs of everyday life can provide us as career practitioners with the tools we need to help our clients. Under this theme we encourage presenters to focus on 1) Fostering resilience in the workforce, 2) Creating healthy work environments, and 3) Balancing professional and personal life.
PRINCIPLE #3: TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION
With the ever-increasing use of Technology and AI across Career Development, it’s more important than ever that we as Career Practitioners apply innovative strategies and best practices to prepare students, clients, and employers for the advantages and pitfalls associated with these new tools that are now a part of the hiring process. For this theme we will examine how we can prepare our clients for 1) Adapting to technological advancements and 2) AI and its impact on Career Development.
