Information, advice and guidance community

Welcome! I'm Anthony Barnes and my role is facilitator of the Diploma support programme IAG community.

IAG stands for 'information, advice and guidance'. We all know that access to first-class IAG is incredibly important for young people if they are to choose their 14-19 options wisely, make progress in their learning; and release the potential that is within them.

IAG is provided and managed by a wide range of staff. In schools, colleges and training providers it includes personal tutors, Diploma practitioners and staff who lead on careers and IAG work. They in turn get specialist support from personal advisers who work for external Connexions and IAG services and from advisory staff working for 14-19 consortia, IAG services and local authorities. Opportunity providers including higher education admissions staff and employers also have an important role to play in helping young people make informed decisions about their future lives.

Perhaps you recognise yourself in one of these roles. The purpose of this online community is to give you and everyone who works in IAG a meeting place where you can share best and next practice, exchange resources, raise questions, suggest answers, discuss and debate issues, and talk to experts.

One of the things you can do in the Diploma support programme IAG community is read and post comments in the community blogs. The IAG community blogs are commentaries and reflections by individuals, including one of the local 'champs', on what they are doing and what's happening in IAG. You can post your ideas and responses to what you read there. The 'Hot Topics' blog is a special one. We will announce the topic that we are going to discuss in this blog in advance. It will be for a limited period and at the end we'll summarise what's been said. Then we will have a new topic. From time to time we will invite a guest blogger into the hot seat to lead the discussion on a topic – perhaps someone well-known in the field of careers and IAG – and you can put your questions to them!

Notice too the IAG community open forum. Anyone can propose a new topic and there's no time limit. You can ask for help or respond to other people's requests.

I hope you realise now that you can join in the community in a number of ways. You can read other people's contributions – you do not need to register to do this. And you can also make your own contributions. To do that you first need to register or login. Registering is very quick. You will see that you can give yourself a name, upload an image and write a 'signature' or short profile to introduce yourself.

Taking part in an online community can be fun but it can also contribute to your professional learning and development. I'm looking forward to seeing the IAG community build over the coming months and to seeing the benefits it brings both for IAG practitioners and for the young people they support. Go on – give it a try!