The Transitions project, funded by the Euroregion Euregio Youth and Family Projects aims primarily to support youngsters living in the Tyrol - South Tyrol - Trentino Euroregion as they seek out a meaningful career. The term “transition” denotes the shift from one educational or occupational phase to another, such as moving from lower secondary school to upper secondary school, progressing from school to post-diploma training, entering the labor market or moving between different occupations. Drawing on Savickas' theoretical framework on life design and career adaptation, the Transitions project combines research and intervention with the primary goal of developing an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tool to support young people as they navigate educational and career transitions.This contribution outlines the development and applications of the ICT orientation tool.

Transitions ICT orientation tool is designed as a series of exercises, each of which represents a case study that illustrates how an educational or occupational transition was managed. These case studies are real-life experiences gathered through interviews with 70 young individuals from the Trentino, South Tyrol, and Tyrol regions facing educational and work transitions. Each case is transformed into an interactive exercise hosted on the ELEVATE digital platform, an online course creation and delivery system that integrates text, video, multiple-choice questions, and branching stories into comprehensive training programs in order to engage users and encourage reflection. With these exercises, individuals are encouraged to reflect on the transition they are currently experiencing. This tool is intended to support any young person facing a transition, alone or with the assistance of a counselor, but is particularly useful in the context of upper secondary schools, helping students navigate the transition from lower secondary to upper secondary education. In this context, the exercises can be used by teachers in a classroom setting, providing an opportunity for collective reflection and discussion.

The strategy implemented to build exercises from case studies involves three phases: first, the interviews conducted are transcribed and cataloged according to the transition experiences described by the interviewee. Secondly, relevant excerpts are extracted from the transcription focusing on an array of key aspect: the description of the interviewee’s interests and models, specific adaptation strategies deemed important within the Savickas’ theoretical framework enacted to overcome the transition phase, emotional state of the interviewee, presence or absence of a support network while facing the transition (i.e. family, school, friends, orientation services) and finally the choices made by the interviewee. Finally, these excerpts are assembled into a cohesive branching story within the ELEVATE digital platform using Canva for design and text to speech programs for narration and making the story interactive and engaging for the final user. The construction of each exercise is a highly creative process, but the primary goal remain producing interactive case studies that focus on the core the elements of career counseling as intended by Savickas: the presence of a life story - a theme that motivates the actions - and the development of adaptation skills that are beneficial to effectively navigating the transition.

Keywords: Career Transitions, Life Design, Case Studies, Counseling, Life Stories, Digital Tools, Serious Game.