Working with (eco)values

• Target group: Secondary, VET, Higher education, Adults, Unemployed
• Focus: Connecting with the world, Build solidarity with the world, Imagine and invent the world as you career, Change the world through career
• Activity: Assessing, Advising and counselling
• Form: Individual, Group
• Duration: 60 minutes

A scenario for workshop/individual meeting that helps the client reflect on their values. A set of value-cards is used (or alternatively a list of values with explanation), enriched by values linked to sustainability. The activity is designed for high school and university students, graduates and adults. It targets clients who are involved in or sympathetic to green professions and issues, as well as those who have yet to find a relationship with environmental/green issues.

Inspiration for the tool

• M. Shymon – B-creative cards World of Values (handbook)
• Barrett Values Centre – Personal Values Assessment

Rationale: Why is this needed?

Values are an important factor, a compass, for clients/participants to make decisions on their career path. If they fulfil their values at work, it leads to a sense of meaningfulness, increases motivation and engagement. Recognizing and naming values is an important step that many clients neglect (or do not include sustainability-related topics in) when making their decisions. Counsellors/facilitators can play an important role in this by introducing the topic and guiding them in discovering (eco)values.

Objectives

After completing this activity, participants will:

• Have identified and be able to name their (eco)values that are important to them, guide their behavior, decision-making, and setting of boundaries.
• Be able to focus their attention on ecological/sustainability topics.
• Understand how these (eco)values manifest, how they can protect them, and how to strengthen them.
• Be able to share information and mutually inspire each other on the topic of (eco)values.

Resources needed

• List of values (including eco-values) (Annex 1)
• Cards with (eco)values as a complement to the World of Values cards (Annex 2)
• Worksheet for group work (Annex 3)
• paper, post it, pen

Activities

At the beginning of the session, it is helpful for the counsellor to frame the practice and define what the values are and why they are important.

Values are the basic beliefs or principles that influence our decisions, behaviour and perception of the world. They are the things we consider important and valuable in our lives. Values serve as an invisible compass that guides us toward what we consider meaningful, right, or important. They help us find meaning and fulfilment in life, strengthen our relationships with others and the world, and enable us to make ethical and moral choices.

Individual Activity Instruction:

One way to help clients tune into the values theme in individual work is to reflect on times in their lives when they felt pleasant emotions and were convinced, they made the right decision. As part of the conversation, focus with clients on situations (from work or personal life) when they felt:

• happiest,
• fulfilled,
• proud of themselves.

The assignment: Recall a situation/instance/moment when you felt (fill in the above feelings).

Ask the client the following questions:

1. What did you do and who were you there with?
2. What contributed to your feelings of (happiness/fulfilment/anger)?
3. Did others share these feelings with you? What was it like for you?
4. How and why did this experience give meaning to your life? What desires/values/needs did you have fulfilled?

Optional questions connected more explicitly with sustainability:

• How did this situation connect you with others, nature, or your environment?
• What impact did this situation have (or could it have) on others or the world around you?
• Whom or what did you care for (people, nature, or community) in what you did?

A list of values (Annex 1) or value cards (Annex 2) from which the client chooses the ones that were relevant and important to him/her at the time can help you at this point. You can then focus on inquiry and reinforcement of the values through the following questions:

• Why is this value important to you?
• What behaviours support this value?
• What could you start doing to manifest this value more fully?
• What could you stop doing to better support this value?
• Why is this value important in the context of today’s world (e.g. climate change, social inequalities)?
• How might this value help build a more sustainable future?
• Could this value help others or contribute to the well-being of future generations?
• If everyone acted in line with the value you experienced here, what would be the effect on society or the planet?

Group activity instructions:

1. Think of 3 situations when you felt happy, fulfilled, satisfied or proud of yourself. Write each situation down on the worksheet (Annex 3).
2. The counsellor will show the values to the participants and can use the list of values augmented with eco-values (Annex 1) or the value cards from M. Shymon with eco-value cards (Annex 2). He then instructs, “In each situation, reflect individually on the following questions and important information, and write down the values on the worksheet (Annex 3).”

• What contributed to your feeling of satisfaction?
• In what ways does this experience give meaning to your life?
• What values have you fulfilled?

3. In a small group of 2-4 participants, share or answer questions afterwards:

• In what ways were the situations similar?
• What values did you have lived in them?
• Which values are the most important?

Write down the top 3 most important values in your worksheet.

To connect this reflection more explicitly with sustainability, the facilitator can add some of the following questions:

• Are there shared values in the group that could support a more sustainable or fair society?
• Which of your top 3 values could guide you to contribute positively to your community or the planet?
• Which of these values could help guide us in times of environmental or societal crisis?

4. Participants each speak for themselves in a large group to tell the key value and what it means to them. An extension activity can be to categorize the values into personal, family, social, cultural, professional, ecological, and we can name the importance of ecological values for the future. Each person has different values and prioritizes them differently, by being unique. Values enter the choice of field of study and profession.

Reflections/Consolidation of learning

The counsellors work with a comprehensive list of values, observing how eco-values are incorporated into the value ranking, what they mean to the client or how important they are. In selected preventive career education programmes, it is possible to focus primarily on eco-values.