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Toolkits & Resources

Access essential curriculum syllabus guides, professional toolkits, and quick reference sheets curated by Sonder facilitators.

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September 2026 Cohort: Draft Programme of Dates — Available Now

Complete curriculum breakdown, unit outlines, fees, draft schedule of session dates, and learning pathway timeline for the Level 6 Diploma.

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Free Practitioner Toolkit: Broad Goal Cards Sort Tool

Designed to help career guidance practitioners establish a broad focus at the start of career conversations. Below you can download the printable cards, access the practitioner guidance document, or read the full usage instructions.

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Printable Cards: Broad goals - setting the purpose cards (PDF)

Printable kinaesthetic sort cards for clients to pick from at the start of a session, helping to reduce anxiety and explore focus areas.

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Instructions Document: Guidance for using broad goal cards (Word Doc)

Practitioner instructions, sample questions, theoretical background, and guidance on adapting the cards. Adapted from Creative Career Coaching.

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Tool Usage Instructions & Guidance

Adapted from Hambly and Bomford (2018; 2026) Creative Career Coaching: Theory into Practice (Routledge)

At the start of a career conversation, the aim is to understand the client's current situation and what they hope to gain, rather than exploring issues in depth or jumping to outcomes too early. Agreeing a broad purpose keeps options open and allows for deeper exploration.

Useful Questions

"So tell me, what brought you here today?"
"Take me through what you're doing at the moment?" (current situation)
"What would you like to get from working together?"

Why Use Cards?

Asking clients to pick cards rather than answering open questions avoids the "I don't know" response, reduces anxiety by making the process kinaesthetic, and provides ideas from which to choose. Blank cards can also be used to encourage them to write their own.

Adaptation: You can adapt these cards with or without images, send them as preparation before a session, tailor the language to your specific client group, and use as many or as few as you need.

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Clarifying the Situation and Agreeing a Broad Purpose:

The foundations stage is not about exploring issues in depth yet, but about establishing the relationship and clarifying with ethical transparency the purpose and process, gaining informed commitment to going deeper into the backstory to understand what resources they already have in place and what’s needed to increase their chances of effective decision making and change management.

Clients may present a wide range of needs—from uncertainty about next steps, to wanting a job quickly, to requesting practical help such as a CV. While it can be tempting to respond directly to these requests, it’s important to explain that coaching can offer more than immediate solutions. It can support longer-term progress by exploring what is helping or hindering them and identifying realistic next steps.

Some clients may already have a clear plan and feel protective of it. In these cases, it helps to reassure them that your role is not to judge their ideas, but to support them—for example, by checking their plan, strengthening their approach, or identifying anything that could improve their chances of success.

Focusing on Broad Goals:

Rather than agreeing a specific career outcome too early, it is more effective to agree a broad purpose for the work. Narrow goals can limit exploration and assume that the client’s initial idea is realistic, fully considered, and truly their own.

A broader goal keeps options open and allows for deeper exploration. For example, instead of focusing on a specific job, the purpose might be to: gain clarity about options, develop a realistic plan, or increase confidence in decision-making.

You can summarise and agree this purpose with the client, for example: “Right now you’re feeling unsure about your direction, and you’d like to feel clearer and have a plan going forward.” This shared purpose provides direction for the session while leaving space for new insights and possibilities to emerge. If the client prefers to focus only on an immediate need, that choice should be respected, while keeping the option of broader coaching open for the future.

— Liane Hambly, June 2026

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