The resilient adult guidance practitioner: a study of the impact of high-touch work in challenging times

This report is a summary of an IRCHSS (New Ideas Award) funded research project carried out between December, 2011 and March, 2012 in the University of Limerick. The aim was to investigate resilience for adult guidance practitioners involved in high touch work during a time of unrelenting economic challenges. High touch is “highly skilled professional attachment, involvement, and separation over and over again with one person after another” (Skovholt and Trotter-Mathison (2011, p.106). It involves respect, constant empathy, one-way caring, understanding and energy for the client. Twelve practitioners from a range of adult guidance services in the Republic of Ireland and England participated in the study between February and March, 2012. The ten Irish practitioners work in the Adult Educational Guidance Initiative (AEGI), the Local Employment Service (LES) and a VEC VTOS Centre. The two English practitioners work in a University Careers Service and a Public Employment Service (NextStep).