Course guide puts a spotlight on care economy careers
iilo helped Gulf Islands School District 64 produce an attractive and informative course guide for teachers and students to learn about in-demand careers in BC’s care economy sector.
Communication design challenge
Gulf Islands School District 64 serves approximately 1,800 students on five islands in the Salish Sea in British Columbia. Through intellectual and creative development, community connections, and career explorations, the district aims for every student to graduate with dignity, purpose, and options.
Communities across BC are facing acute staffing shortages in caring professions, including educators, emergency responders, mental health workers, and allied health professionals. With funding from the Ministry of Education and Child Care, the district set out to create a course guide that will encourage students to explore careers in the caring sector, with the goal of growing the caring economy talent pool.
First, the district gathered subject matter experts and community members from their extensive network in a world cafe style event to identify what students would need to “know, do, and understand” to succeed professionally in the care economy. Next, they created a curriculum framework according to requirements set by the Ministry, followed by a companion course guide for teachers to weave career economy conversations into their existing career education activities, or create their own career economy course. Since creating the course guide was a new process for the district, they knew they would benefit from professional strategic and design support and reached out to iilo.
iilo swiftly assembled a team of communication design professionals with skills ranging from illustration and production design to writing and editing. A dedicated iilo project manager, along with a communications strategist, provided ongoing guidance on the overall project scope, workflow, and content and design considerations. We incorporated elements from the district’s recent rebrand and a graphic recording from the world cafe event to form the visual foundation of the course guide. While the client wrote the guide, our team provided substantive and copy editing services throughout the process.
Outcomes
The resulting Care Economy Career Sampler Course Guide is visually engaging and designed to appeal to a broad audience, including Ministry staff members, secondary school educators, students, and care economy stakeholders. The guide is registered as a Board Authorized course in British Columbia, and any school district can have the framework document approved by their Board of Trustees and use it.
We expanded on the visual language originating from the world cafe, so the client can reuse or adapt graphics in future projects. Our team’s content and copy editing expertise also helped ensure the course guide was thorough, consistent, and compelling, while following required academic guidelines.
We’re proud to have transformed our client’s community engagement efforts and domain knowledge into a tool that can be used by school districts across BC to grow our provincial care economy!
Our impact
“The team at iilo Creative Alliance were essentially like having extra staff members working on our project together. Their professionalism was impeccable. Working virtually was incredibly effective even with challenging edit requests. Their creative approach to providing graphic designs that supported the spirit and values of our project was outstanding and their attention to detail was exceptional. I can’t recommend this company enough.”
