Since 1989, RESO has worked to set up insertion enterprises to facilitate the social and professional reinsertion of the unemployed. With Formétal, intended for young highschool dropouts, Cuisine Atout, aimed at illiterate people, and, more recently, Café Paradoxe, which also targets young dropouts, the Sud-Ouest now boasts roughly 100 insertion spaces per year in businesses known for expertise and leadership in their respective fields. These businesses now have their own funding framework with Emploi-Québec. Moreover, in collaboration with a community education centre and public services in employment assistance, RESO has also contributed to the development of unique expertise in onsite basic training at FBDM, a social economy enterprise that helps dozens of unemployed people in the Sud-Ouest integrate into the job market as part of a local initiative project in workforce development.
WHAT ARE LOCAL INITIATIVES IN WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT?
Local initiatives in workforce development are projects undertaken by community organizations and, in certain cases, social economy enterprises to develop the employability of people in the Sud-Ouest. At least 15 organizations in the Sud-Ouest – not necessarily involved in workforce development – carry out frequently intensive pre-employability and employability activities. In the past six or seven years, these activities have reached several hundred jobless people, some quite estranged from the labour market.
RESO’s partnership with Emploi-Québec enables it to supply coaching and financial resources – through the latter’s Budget d’initiatives locales for workforce development – to assist organizations in conceiving, preparing, realizing and evaluating their projects.
LOCAL INITIATIVES IN WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT IN THE SUD-OUEST
Local initiatives in the Sud-Ouest are characterized by response to needs in the community – for training for the unemployed, and their insertion into the job market. Since 1990, nearly one hundred initiatives have reached hundreds of unemployed people in the Sud-Ouest.
Since 1999, RESO, in consultation with partners in the community, has set the parameters for workforce development of both working and unemployed people in its Plan d’action pour l’économie et l’emploi 2007-2010 (PALÉE), which addresses local initiatives. These initiatives are also addressed in the Centre local d’emploi (CLE) Plan d’action local (PAL).
The following projects demonstrate the innovation and vitality of organizations in the community in their approach to the workforce:
- Micro-Paradoxe, at the Café Paradoxe: A social and professional insertion project for young people aged 18 to 30 in the field of audiovisual and multimedia techniques.
- Projet Azimut, at the Auberge communautaire du Sud-Ouest: An employability development and apprenticeship project in cooking, carpentry and computers for young adults in difficulty.
- A Lachine Canal improvement project by Pro-Vert Sud-Ouest: A horticultural insertion project for young dropouts.
- Prêt Go, at the Atelier de formation et d’Apprentissage au travail (AFAT), in collaboration with Formation de base pour le développement de la main-d’œuvre (FBDM): Work initiation and francization for young anglophones and allophones.
- Coup de pouce, at the Club populaire des consommateurs: Job market exploration activities, in collaboration with RESO’s Explore Action, through collective kitchens.
- Tyndale Treasures, at the Tyndale Community Centre: A training project for anglophones and allophones in retail sales and warehouse work, including francization, and apprenticeship in a store for recycled items.
- Self-actualization at the women’s centre Madame prend congé, in collaboration with the Centre de formation pour femmes: A pre-employability process based on self-knowledge and actualizing potential.
RESO’s Role
The expertise of RESO and its partners is built on individuals’ capacity to take charge of their destinies, overcome obstacles preventing them from attaining their goals, and achieve autonomous and lasting social and economic integration. In this respect, the Plan d'action local pour l'économie et l'emploi 2007-2010 (PALÉE), developed in consultation with community organizations in the Sud-Ouest, identifies set priorities. These include:
- Involving enterprises in projects aimed at recruitment and development of unemployed workers’ skills, integrating them into the workforce, and helping them retain their jobs.
- Improving access to training and employment measures to reach a maximum number of people.
- Developing a link between worker supply and worker demand.
- Facilitating conditions, from both financial and coaching points of view.
- Easing standards for participation in measures.
- Ensuring measures to prevent exclusion are available.
- Encouraging the use of different linkage models that satisfy both the needs of people seeking work, and those of companies seeking workers.
- Developing tools and innovative projects that encourage social and economic integration of the unemployed.
The principles that, for more than a decade, have guided the workforce development initiatives of the Sud-Ouest community, and RESO and its partners in the community are as follows:
- Work with individuals that become involved voluntarily, an approach based on development.
- Start from people’s needs, a global and personalized approach, custom-designed, that takes into account people’s interests and aspirations.
- Innovate on the basis of needs.
- Make services available to all who want them, regardless of status: Standards and criteria must be eased so that services are accessible to all.
- Ensure training activities are qualifying: Training must correspond to people’s interests, lead to a diploma and be linked to employment.
- Provide guidance and follow-up, a coaching process that recognizes individual autonomy, establishes a relationship of confidence and allows individuals themselves to be the real force in their development.
- Develop citizenship by proposing participation in community development.
- Ensure a continuity in services offered to unemployed people, establish an accordance between resources, create a social solidarity net, develop networking and working in partnership.
- Develop collective approaches.
The Plan d’action en développement d’initiatives locales
One of RESO’s main raisons d’être, and that of the Community Development and Social Economy Service, is to encourage the emergence, development and strengthening of local initiative projects affecting local workforce development, and to promote the creation and retention of lasting, high-quality jobs for the people of the Sud-Ouest.
In this sense, the Community Development and Social Economy team anticipates supporting local initiatives in 2007-2008 by achieving the following objectives:
- Coaching community organizations with pre-employability and employability projects that complement services already offered by RESO and CLE.
- Supporting the operations and development of the Sud-Ouest’s work insertion enterprises.
- Contribute to the development of projects that respect the Stratégie jeunes et emplois du Sud-Ouest, in collaboration with the Carrefour jeunesse emploi du Sud-Ouest.
Training and Skills Development
Since its creation, RESO has been in favour of supporting training to improve human resources skills in organizations and community organizations. With Emploi-Québec’s help, it has developed services that meet these organizations’ needs. Its activities fulfill organizations’ networking needs and provide training by peers at the same time.
- Organizing thematic training sessions responding to needs expressed by supervisors and personnel of community organizations and social economy enterprises in the Sud-Ouest.
- In collaboration with FormaPlus and with the assistance of the Fonds national de formation de la main-d’œuvre, developing strategies that help meet the training needs of personnel at community organizations and enterprises.
- In collaboration with RESO’s Business Services, take part in recruitment and identifying community organizations’ and social economy enterprises’ training needs, in the framework of the training cooperative Formaplus.
- Strengthen and sustain seven community Internet access centres in the Sud-Ouest.
FINANCING: BUDGET D’INITIATIVES LOCALES (BIL)
The Budget d’initiatives locales (BIL) offers financial support for local workforce development initiatives in the Sud-Ouest.
The BIL amounts to $245,600 in our district. Financing comes from the Ministère de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité through Emploi-Québec. A local ad hoc table is in charge of managing the BIL.
According to the general guidelines defined in the framework agreement between CEDCs and Emploi-Québec for the period from April 1, 2005, to March 31, 2008, the ad hoc table has the following mandate:
Encourage the emergence and realization of employability and workforce development projects in the district that put top priority on the needs of its unemployed people who are experiencing difficulties on the path to employment, or integrating into the job market.
Local initiative projects must be in keeping with Emploi-Québec’s mission, respect the rules of the Fonds de développement du marché du travail (FDMT) and complement services offered by Emploi-Québec. Such projects are financed by the FDMT through a reserved budget called the Budget d’initiatives locales (BIL).
They reflect local priorities and take into account points of convergence between the Centre local d’emploi de Pointe Saint-Charles’s Plan d’action local (PAL) and RESO’s Plan d’action local pour l’économie et l’emploi (PALÉE).
They correspond to Emploi-Québec’s programs and measures and respect its compliance rules.