Education and training
1999-2004 Master’s Degree (Laurea Magistralis) in Psychology, State University of Florence IT, five years course (ISCED 5A), final evaluation 110/110
1979-1987 Master’s Degree (Laurea Magistralis) in Economics, State University of Modena IT, four years course (ISCED 5A), final evaluation 110/110 cum laude
Licensed psychologist (Special Register of Psychologists Tuscany n.4527)
Work experience
1998 onward European projects: Coordinator, Scientific director, Expert, Evaluator, Project writer, Supervisor, Trainer.
2004 onward Trainer. I train people mostly on career guidance and HR development and on European project writing and managing. Since 2004 I have trained over 3.000 people in about 200 workshops. See here the list of workshops I carried out on career guidance, and here the ones on european projects.
1999 onward Researcher (mostly in the field of career guidance). Since 1999 I have written 4 books, published over 60 articles on Italian Journals and on my website www.orientamento.it and participated as expert/speaker in many seminars and congresses in Italy and abroad, including CEDEFOP, INETOP and European Commission DG EAC. So far my favourite research topics have been: the use of the internet and of virtual communities for career guidance; status, competencies and training needs of career guidance practitioners; career guidance role in employment and training policies; career guidance and recognition of non-formal and informal learning. See below a detail of publications and communications.
1993-2003 and again 2009-2010 Career adviser for SPO Servizi per l’orientamento and OIR Associazione Orientamento in Rete. As a career adviser, I completed more than 5000 hours of group activities and individual counselling with a wide-range of clientele, from lower secondary school students to women returners.
1994-2003 Director of SPO Servizi per l’Orientamento (1994-1999) and OIR Associazione Orientamento in Rete (1998-2003), two organisations based in Empoli, Italy, specialised in the delivering of career guidance services. During my appointment both organisations secured contracts for delivering career guidance in the 16 public employment offices and in many schools of the Districts of Florence, Siena, Empoli. My tasks included managing, budgeting and financial control, writing bids, selecting and coordinating the personnel delivering the services, accrediting OIR with the Italian quality assurance system for careers guidance services and starting accreditation with ISO9001.
1979-1993 Several different occupations as small business owner (SIGRAN, a knitwear producing firm, S. Giovanni V. IT), bank clerk (Credito Italiano, Firenze IT), teacher of bookkeeping in high-secondary schools (Istituto Professionale per il Commercio Empoli IT e Castelfiorentino IT), trainer in VET courses (ASI Empoli IT), economist in a consulting company (Studio Gaeta, Milano IT) and in a employers’s association (Confindustria Firenze IT).
Other information
I I have been in the Board of IAEVG International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance in 2011-212 and President of the old ASSIPRO Italian Association of Career Guidance Practitioners.
I have developed several materials for career guidance and the website s www.orientamento.it addressed to Italian career guidance practitioners; www.guidanceforum.net (in several languages) on how to use the Internet in career guidance; www.aiuto.net/uk1.htm (in English) and www.aiuto.net (in Italian), two gateways for accessing UK and Italian web-sites usful for career guidance; GWO Guide to the World of Occupations (Italian version, in Italian); www.guidalavoro.net (in Italian) a guide to choosing a profession and to job-search in Italy.
Publications
Books
- Coeditor (together with Peter Weber) of the book IMPROVE – Guide for Validation of Career Guidance Practitioners’ Competence published by the project IMPROVE Improving Validation of Not-Formal Learning in European Career Guidance Practitioners project number 510640-LLP-1-2010-1-IT-GRUNDTVIG-GMP. I have written the chapter Validation of not formal and informal learning in practice.
- Study on Existing Frameworks to Validate Competence of Career Guidance Practitioners (2011). Available at http://www.improveguidance.eu
- Professione Orientamento. Una guida per chi vuole inserirsi nel settore (2005), Edizioni Sonda, Casale Monferrato.
- Una rivoluzione silenziosa. L’impatto di internet sugli operatori e i servizi di orientamento (2004), Edizioni Sonda, Casale Monferrato. The book is my dissertation for the degree in psychology and was originated by a research carried out in the above mentioned EGA European project. English translation: A Silent Revolution. The Impact of the Internet on Career Guidance (2005), Edizioni Sonda, Casale Monferrato, available here.
- Una guida per lo svolgimento di attivita’ di orientamento con giovani in obbligo formativo (2003), Regione Toscana, Firenze, progetto pilota Leonardo Intratools.
Articles in journals and books in English see at the end of this page in Italian.