OVERVIEW AND RATIONALE
Making a transition can be difficult, whether it’s planned or unexpected, happy or sad (i.e., marriage or divorce, move, birth, death, award, layoff, graduation). The transition process can be managed most effectively if applied in the context of one’s own life.

ICEBREAKER
Share, with a partner, some of your favorite childhood memories up to the age of ten. Include places, actions, people, visual memories, sounds, scents, and physical activities. Each person in pair has 4 minutes to share his or her memories. Later in this lesson, you will have an opportunity to write a poem that will include your early memories. You may be able to find sources of support to manage a current or future transition from these early memories.

EXPECTED PARTICIPANT OUTCOMES
*to identify internal sources of support to help manage a career transition;
*to identify external sources of support to help manage a career transition.

AUDIENCE
This is an activity for career practitioners to use with clients from 16 years old on up.

LECTURETTE
Define transition: A transition is an event or non-event that results in change. A transition is characterized by a change in roles, relationships and/or routines. An event is something that happens, such as getting married, having a child, getting a job. A non-event is something that you expected and wanted to happen, but it did not like not getting a promotion. an event or nonevent that results in change. (Schlossberg [1989] in CDF Student Manual, Chapter 4: Theory, pp. 20-22).

Three factors determine the severity of a transition (Schlossberg, 1989): (a) situation, (b) self, and (c) supports. By asking client questions about each factor separately, you and your client can understand more about the transition.

Explain sources of support. Define external and internal sources of support. Draw chart. One column is Internal Sources of Support. Other column is External Sources of Support. Give examples based on Parisima Poem below (for poet of Parisima, internal source of support is preferred learning through multi-senses; external support is family, cultural traditions and social gatherings).

ACTIVITY
Write an “I Am Poem” to discover what supports you have to make career and personal transitions. Include favorable memories from childhood. If you have time, include some current positive images in your life. You will not be required to share your poem with others, if you don't want to. Here is an example.

Relate EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL SOURCES OF SUPPORT to poem.
On a piece of 8 ½ x 11 paper, write your own “I Am” poem. After you have written your poem (about 5 minutes), you are welcome to share your poem in a group.

Discuss TRANSITION THEORY as it relates to poem.

ASSESSMENT
On a blank sheet of paper, draw a chart, listing the external and internal sources of support found in your own poem. Some of these sources of support may be from your youth. Add other sources of support that you have developed over the years.

SUMMARY
We used the poem to help chart internal and external supports. The next steps in Schlossberg's Transitions Theory would be to determine how to implement your career goal, how to make maximum use of external and internal supports, and how to develop skills to overcome barriers.

RESOURCES