Jenn Barfield – Career Development Practitioner RPCDP
Known as “being a gnome” I am a qualified registered professional Career Development Practitioner with the Career Industry Council of Australia. I am also a Professional member of the Career Development Association of Australia (CDAA) and Professional member of the Australian Centre for Career Education (ACCE).
My approach to career development is a holistic creative engagement approach, including whole-brain and mindfulness strategies to developing life long career management skills.
My work is underpinned by evidence-based career theories and strategies.
Hope-action theory resonates so much with me, and I try to live life as optimistically as possible. I’ve been described as being quirky, bubbly, likes to laugh – but can be serious when necessary, kind, curious, compassionate, empathetic and determined. All of these attributes I bring to my role as a Career Development Practitioner (and qualities of a gnome)
My early career background had been in teaching ranging from Primary School through to Adult Learners, over the space of 20+ years in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Germany, before transitioning to my role as a Career Development Practitioner.
My passion is building meaningful professional relationships with people, which provides a basis for working and empathising with them as they are empowered to navigate successful career transitions.
My vision is to be able to offer support to mid to later life people considering career changes, retirement, return to work after career breaks, This includes current and former military personnel and families in Australia and Germany with their transitions from military to civilian life.
As a former military spouse having lived and worked in 3 different countries, I gave up my teaching career to follow my former husband’s military career, struggling how to describe my paid and unpaid skills and experiences on my resume, with the need to experience several career pivots. I have also experienced redundancy and been the sole income provider whilst not having a secure income. Although we all have different experiences, I can appreciate from first hand experiences, some of the challenges you may be facing.
Supporting my former husband’s postings, including living in Germany for three years with a British Forces contingent, and his later struggles during his transition to civilian life and relocation back to Australia, meant that I had to give up my chosen teaching career, leaving me with a sense of loss of identity.
I struggled for some time to discover how to describe skills and knowledge from teaching as transferrable to other career pathways, taking roles as varied as office administration, e-Learning, career coaching and adult literacy coaching.
It is through these experiences that as a Career Development Practitioner I resonate with Hope Action Theory.
All of these lived experiences and skills, I bring to my role as an experienced Career Development Practitioner, in particular in providing holistic mindfulness/wellbeing career exploration, for career change as I walk alongside clients for part of their career journey. My specialisations includes career development support for those who are;
- feeling ‘lost’ in their career and wondering what their sense of mattering is
- considering their career progression & lifelong learning
- how to lift and shift their career into different roles within a company
- military transitions
- military spouses
- going through career crises
- facing redundancy
- mid career changers
- returning to work after a career break
- older workers
Delivery of career coaching is in one-on-one and group coaching sessions, I am also experienced developing and delivering group presentations and workshops relating to career exploration and wellbeing.
I utilise the knowledge and experiences of living in three different countries and working across a variety of industries and careers to empathise with clients what they are working through, and enhance my delivery of career coaching.
Qualifications & Memberships:
🔸 Registered Professional Career Development Practitioner (RPCDP), Career Industry Council of Australia
🔸 Graduate Certificate in Career Development Practices
Career Education Association of Victoria
🔸 Advanced: Certification in Hope-Action Theory Practitioner (CHATP)
Doubleknot Works
🔸 Professional Member, Career Development Association of Australia (CDAA), (PCDAA)
🔸 Professional Member of Australian Centre for Career Education (ACCE)
🔸 Accredited Standard Mental Health First Aider
Mental Health First Aid Australia
Holistic Career Development Coaching 