Strengthening Capacity

Family Capacity Advocate program evaluation

The Family Capacity Advocate program at Britannia Woods Community House (BWCH) in Ottawa supports families who have a loved one from the ages of 12-25 at risk of proximity with the criminal justice system. SRDC initially assisted BWCH in planning and piloting an evaluation of this new program when it launched in 2021. Now, building on our previous work, we are collaborating closely with BWCH to carry out a second phase of implementation and outcome evaluation of the Family Capacity Advocate program, with a focus on participatory approaches and evaluation capacity building. SRDC will review and refine existing quantitative data tools used by BWCH staff to collect client data; collect and analyze additional qualitative data from clients; and prepare a fulsome report synthesizing the findings across all available data sources. The final evaluation report will assist BWCH in effectively capturing and communicating the story of the Family Capacity Advocate program’s implementation and outcomes.

Start-end date: May 2023 - December 2023
Sponsor: Britannia Woods Community House

Skills for Success Proficiency Levels Development

In addition to providing detailed definitions of all nine skills, the SRDC report supporting the 2021 launch of the Skills for Success framework also includes preliminary proficiency level statements for each skill. These statements are intended to provide initial guidance for skill assessment but need further refinement to reflect a range of occupational requirements and better meet the needs of learners, trainers, and employers. As outlined in the SRDC report, more detailed proficiency levels and descriptors should be developed through an iterative, evidence-based, and collaborative process. In accordance with these recommendations, this project assembles an expert panel with experience in working with diverse learners and developing foundational and transferable skills resources and training programs in a range of regions and sectors. The panel is assisting SRDC in analyzing a range of occupational profiles, with priority for those in high demand, to identify tasks that are common and unique across occupations along with underlying skill dimensions and complexity levels for each task. The project goal is to work in collaboration with the panel and ESDC to reach consensus on improved proficiency statements for each of the nine skills, with examples drawn from our occupational task analysis of in-demand sectors.

Start-end date: January 2023 - January 2024
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Strategic evaluation and learning support for the Future Skills Centre

Over the past four years, the Future Skills Centre (FSC) has supported the development, refinement, or expansion of approaches to developing skills for workers from a variety of backgrounds and in a variety of sectors. These innovation projects are required to mobilize knowledge and evidence among key stakeholders, institutions, and decision-makers for the purposes of improving policies and practices in Canada. SRDC is developing a mix of retrospective and prospective evaluation approaches for a subset of up to 18 of these projects, dependent on the timelines and stage of development of each project. These involve quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis using document and data review, interviews with project partners and their FSC liaisons, implementation evaluation, and theory of change or logic model development. SRDC’s learning and evaluation framework is designed to capture what has been learned from these projects for the future development of the skills ecosystem in Canada.

Start-end date: October 2022 - September 2023
Sponsor: Future Skills Centre

Women First: Building skills for success

Funded through Employment and Social Development Canada’s Women’s Employment Readiness Pilot, the WOMEN FIRST project is a multi-partner initiative aiming to leverage employment and skills training to address barriers faced by multiply-marginalized women. Led by PTP Adult Learning and Employment Programs (PTP) in collaboration with five service delivery providers across the country, the project aims to draw on partners’ collective expertise to develop, test, and evaluate pre-employment and skills development supports. Specifically, the project seeks to build knowledge about approaches to programming, curriculum, and wraparound supports that best serve women facing multiple structural barriers, including low-income women, Indigenous women, racialized women, 2SLGBTQ+ women, newcomer women, and women with disabilities. SRDC is working closely with partners to design and implement an evaluation of the project, including the program delivery across all six pilot sites and new Skill for Success curriculum developed by partner Alberta Workforce Essential Skills. In particular, SRDC is supporting an evaluation grounded in principles of intersectional feminism, anti-oppression, equity, and justice.

Start-end date: July 2022 - September 2023
Sponsor: PTP Adult Learning and Employment Programs

Evaluation of the Increasing Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Information project

Centre for Sexuality (C4S), in partnership with community stakeholders in Alberta, is co-creating and launching updated Relationship and Sexual Education (RSE) curricula, aimed at increasing access to sexual and reproductive health information, resources, and care in Alberta. SRDC is supporting the evaluation of the Increasing Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Information project, which encompasses four distinct population-specific strategies supporting equity-deserving groups in Alberta: youth, 2SLGBTQ+, Indigenous youth and communities, and people with developmental disabilities. Building on and tailoring C4S’s RSE program, C4S will work with communities (and community advisory committees) to develop responsive program and training materials, implement these, and evaluate associated project processes and outcomes. SRDC will provide developmental evaluation support, supporting the co-design and implementation of evaluation tools across all four strategies, and for the project as a whole.

Start-end date: June 2022 - March 2024
Sponsor: Centre for Sexuality

Enhancing employment services through development and assessment of Skills for Success training

With the involvement of several project partners, SRDC is developing assessment and training resources to support both transferable and sector-based Skills for Success (SFS) programming; designing and implementing targeted and intensive SFS training to address individuals and employer needs; and customizing assessment and training resources for underrepresented groups. This is being done through a two‑model system ranging from “lighter touch” general training and capacity building to more intensive development, customization, and pilot testing of new training resources. More specifically, the project broadens and deepens existing capacity-building efforts in the skills and employment training sector by scaling up the use of our SFS-aligned online measurement platform; testing new SFS measurement options, including self-report and objective assessment methodologies; developing, delivering, and evaluating new SFS curricula, training resources, and assessment tools; and disseminating findings, best practices, and lessons learned to continue building sectoral knowledge and capacity.

Start-end date: June 2022 - March 2024
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

EMC Skills Evolution

EMC Skills Evolution is a national, industry-driven initiative that will provide new insights for scaling up sectoral micro-credentials, through the identification, validation, prioritization, and building of occupational competency frameworks for the manufacturing, aviation and aerospace, and other sectors, providing a sharable roadmap for developing and deploying workforce capability growth through a competency-based micro-credential approach. Specifically, this project seeks to define and apply an industry-driven, multi-sector methodology to micro-credential development and adoption, enabling employers in the manufacturing, aviation and aerospace, and other sectors to more rapidly upskill and reskill their workforce, as well as to more quickly onboard newly recruited workers and facilitate broader recognition of relevant skills and workforce mobility.

Start-end date: June 2022 - August 2023
Sponsor: Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium

Mentor Canada: Organizational evaluation and performance measurement

SRDC will support Mentor Canada to develop an organizational performance monitoring and evaluation framework. Building on Mentor Canada’s strategic plan for 2022-2025, and its objective to broaden and deepen access to quality mentoring in Canada for youth, particularly equity-deserving groups, SRDC will work with Mentor Canada to design a responsive set of tools to monitor progress against key performance indicators.

Start-end date: March 2022 - March 2023
Sponsor: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada

New Inclusive Economy

The New Inclusive Economy is a BC Sector Labour Market Partnership research project that is investigating inclusive employment from the employer (demand-side) of recruitment and retention of people with disabilities. The two-year research project is utilizing a combination of research methods, including case studies, an environmental scan, literature review, and primary data collection from employers across multiple sectors in BC including manufacturing, tech, and retail to answer the question: when people with disabilities and other barriers to employment are meaningfully employed, what are the enabling structural conditions, and how can these be amplified and mobilized in other contexts? As research partner, SRDC is primarily responsible for leading data collection activities with employers to generate evidence-based recommendations for identifying structural barriers and other effective approaches to increasing employer capacity to attract and retain employees with disabilities or other barriers to employment.

Start-end date: January 2022 - September 2023
Sponsor: Inclusion Powell River Society

Community Planning Project

The Community Planning Project is a two-year project funded by IRCC’s Service Delivery Improvement stream within the Settlement Program to explore the interest and need for a community-based funding model, and the development of a community-led plan for the Tri-Cities. This project uses a participatory community approach to support collaboration of organizations across multiple sectors and community members on a learning journey to examine, imagine, and co-create a community-based participatory funding model and plan that will address the service needs/areas in the Tri-Cities and better meet community-identified settlement priorities through a coordinated approach to funding and service delivery.  

The Tri-Cities Local Immigration Partnership will manage and provide oversight for the project. SRDC is the research partner. Community members in the Tri-Cities who are interested and affected by funding for settlement services will be engaged in the process to develop the community plan.

Start-end date: January 2022 - March 2024
Sponsor: S.U.C.C.E.S.S. – Tri-cities Local Immigration Partnership

Skills for Success Implementation Guidance Development

The launch of Skills for Success in May 2021 leverages the core strength of the Essential Skills framework while tightening the alignment with modern labour market needs, with a greater focus on a range of socio-emotional skills. This project’s main objective is to produce a document outlining key principles and emerging practices to guide the implementation of Skills for Success, reflecting the Government of Canada’s commitment to create and update training programs, resources, and assessment materials, facilitate training participation of vulnerable groups, and build the capacity of stakeholders who serve these populations. Our approach will combine environmental scan and literature review with the involvement of an expert advisory panel representing training and sectoral organizations with nation-wide networks, to develop three broad kinds of content: i) identification of learning needs for underrepresented groups (e.g., Indigenous people, racialized Canadians, persons with disabilities) and key sectors; ii) guiding principles for the design of tailored training and assessment tools to align with identified learner and sectoral needs; and iii) implementation examples and approaches from early adopters of Skills for Success. These will be synthesized into a final report to facilitate tool customization and program implementation aligned with the unique learning needs of groups underrepresented in the labour market, as well as the job performance needs of major sectors of the Canadian economy.

Start-end date: December 2021 - September 2022
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Research and Evaluation Capacity Building for Francophone Service Providers

This project is testing an approach to building the research and evaluation capacity of Francophone service providers in Central-Southwestern Ontario, which consists primarily of practical interventions designed to increase their knowledge and skills in the field. Internal capacity in research and evaluation promotes learning from successes and mistakes in order to better adapt to challenges and be more effective in responding to the emerging needs of different French-speaking immigrant groups. SRDC is working in partnership with the RIF Centre-Sud-Ouest (RIFCSO) on this project. Through this project, staff from participating service providers and the RIFCSO will develop the skills and capacity to gather evidence, measure, evaluate, and report on the outcomes of their existing or future programs. The ultimate goal of this project is that participating Francophone providers will be able to adapt, design, and implement innovative solutions that are evidence-based. Through pre- and post-intervention data collection, the project will identify how capacity-building activities contribute to improved research and evaluation within service providers, as well as how new knowledge has been applied and influences decision making.

Start-end date: December 2021 - March 2024
Sponsor: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Effective Employer Engagement in Newcomer Skills Development Programs

Effective Employer Engagement in Newcomer Skills Development Programs is a research project. It is designed to gather evidence to inform and improve approaches for employer engagement for both service provider organizations and employers. The project will engage a national network of immigrant employment councils (IECs), service provider organizations (SPOs), and employers to share and discuss project findings on the current modes of employer engagement and challenges the stakeholders face, as well as get their input to establish the criteria for best practices in employer engagement and to develop an employer engagement index. The project will produce tools to support SPOs in their employer engagement practices.

Start-end date: December 2021 - March 2023
Sponsor: Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council

Increasing Pathways to Employment

Funded by Women and Gender Equality Canada’s Feminist Response and Recovery Fund, Women in Resource Development Corporation (WRDC) is leading a project to advance inclusive skills development policies and practices to remove barriers that prevent women’s full participation. This project includes a partnership with the Canadian Career Development Foundation, the Provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Community Employment Collaboration, and SRDC. The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified systemic and longstanding inequalities, with women disproportionately impacted by the crisis. Women have faced job losses and reduced work hours, shouldered the majority of the additional unpaid care responsibilities at home, and continue to be on the front lines of the pandemic. A feminist response and recovery includes accelerating women’s education and training to increase participation in higher paying, more secure careers. However, women are disproportionately impacted by inflexible training policies and practices that do not recognize their realities of under-employment and precarious employment, caretaking responsibilities, and other barriers they face in accessing pathways into professional and technology-based industries. This project centers the experience of women and of service providers using co-design methods to identify persistent and emerging barriers amplified by COVID-19, change systems, and accelerate progress on women’s equality.

Start-end date: December 2021 - March 2024
Sponsor: Women in Resource Development Corporation

Building Capacity through an Anti-Oppression Lens

This research project An Anti-oppression Framework to Combat Systemic Racism in Settlement Services is designed to test the use of Anti-Oppression Approaches (AOP) to build capacity of immigrant-serving agencies to recognize and combat systemic racism in the sector. The project will engage immigrant-serving agencies in Metro Vancouver to increase their front-line practitioner and leadership’s awareness, recognition, and understanding of anti-oppression in settlement services at the systemic level through 1) workshops and 2) coaching and mentoring. The Centre for Anti-Oppressive Communication will lead the development and implementation of the training. The evaluation is designed to learn not just about training participants’ experience with the project activities and the resulting skills acquisition, but also the outcomes — what did participants actively change at multiple levels — institutionally, interpersonally, and individually.

Start-end date: November 2021 - March 2024
Sponsor: S.U.C.C.E.S.S. – Tri-cities Local Immigration Partnership

Culturally responsive and accessible approaches to priority populations during COVID-19 and beyond

The COVID-19 pandemic has not affected all Canadians equally. LGBTQ2+ populations are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, compounding existing social, health, and mental health disparities rooted in systemic stigma and discrimination. Recent survey data has shown disproportionate impacts on employment, household finances, and physical and mental health among LGBTQ2+ populations, and particularly racialized members of those populations.

Persistent data gaps continue to pose a challenge reducing health and social inequities in Canada during the pandemic and beyond. There have been increasing calls for ensuring that data collection with marginalized populations be more culturally responsive and accessible. It is not just a matter of collecting more data, but collecting high-quality data that reflects the needs and perspectives of affected communities, and ensuring the processes of data collection, analysis, reporting, and action on health inequities are in themselves inclusive, equity-promoting, and responsive to communities.

This eight-month research initiative will identify key issues, opportunities, and challenges related to culturally relevant and accessible data collection, analysis and reporting with the priority population, and identify existing best or promising practices in health equity data collection and data governance.

Start-end date: September 2021 - April 2022
Sponsor: Public Health Agency of Canada

Improving student success in Surrey School District (Phase 2)

SRDC is undertaking qualitative fieldwork, working with the school district’s own data and with Statistics Canada’s Education and Labour Market Longitudinal Platform to undertake a study focused on understanding student transitions and success within the Surrey School District education system. The aim is to develop key indicators in partnership with the district and answer questions with respect to student transitions through the K-12 system in Surrey, including the needs of those who leave education prematurely, to the extent the data allow.

Start-end date: July 2021 - June 2022
Sponsor: Surrey Schools

Building It Green: Integrating Climate Literacy into Skilled Trades Education and Training

Funded through the Government of Canada’s Union Training and Innovation Program (UTIP), Canada’s Building Trades Unions (CBTU) is leading the Building It Green project in partnership with SkillPlan, the Climate and Industry Research Team (CIRT), and SRDC. Working in five regions across Canada, this project is assembling a broad network of stakeholders, including climate experts and labour, education and training institutions, to research, review, enhance, and evaluate the construction industry’s knowledge and skills with regards to climate literacy. The overall project objective is to develop and test the integration of climate literacy into training for apprentices and journeyworks to prepare the industry’s unionized workforce to better meet Canada’s climate change commitment.

Start-end date: June 2021 - August 2025
Sponsor: Canada’s Building Trades Unions

The Two-Eyed Seeing Network

While Indigenous youth could provide a significant source of local labour to industry in BC, they are often disengaged, not well networked, and left out of conversations about the future of skills and training. Focusing on sectors with high future demand (clean technology; clean energy; natural resource extraction and processing; marine shipping; the built environment; and manufacturing), the Two-Eyed Seeing Network will work to bridge the gaps between the needs of industry and the potential Indigenous workforce of tomorrow. The network includes participation from Indigenous communities, Industry leaders, workforce and social development organizations, and education and training providers all working together to establish a viable pathway to future work for Indigenous youth that meets the needs of, and is relevant to, both Industry and Indigenous communities. Network partners will work to determine the critical elements to bridge gaps, remove barriers, and engage communities in workforce development, to enable successful labour force participation for Indigenous youth.

Start-end date: April 2021 - May 2023
Sponsor: Construction Foundation of BC

Learning outside together: Incorporating traditional wisdom and promising practices to futureproof child care programs

This project aims to increase knowledge and skills among early care and learning (ECL) professionals related to outdoor play and to the Indigenous practices and educational concepts of “land as teacher”. Key activities include developing an online training and mentorship program, recruiting participants from across BC, and implementing and evaluating the resulting program. ECL programs face barriers to spending more time outdoors due to licensing requirements, available physical space, and lack of supportive workplace policies. Thus, one goal of the project is to support participants, via mentors, to enable them to work through implementation barriers. The legacy goal is to generate evidence, through the project evaluation, that demonstrates the effectiveness of the project’s approaches. This evidence would be used to inform, support, and sustain implementation of these approaches long after the initial funding period has ended. This three-year project is a joint partnership between the Early Childhood Educators of BC (ECEBC), the BC Aboriginal Child Care Society (BCACCS), and SRDC.

Start-end date: April 2021 - March 2024
Sponsor: Early Childhood Educators of BC

Skills for Success Framework: Validation in the Manufacturing Sector

As part of validating OLES’ new Skills for Success Framework, SRDC and Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium are working collaboratively to engage employers in the Manufacturing sector to achieve two primary objectives: i) Validate the Framework: Are the new skills definitions included in the Skills for Success framework aligned with broad employer needs and business outcomes? ii) Alignment with Job Tasks: How do the subcomponents of each defined skill align with the job performance requirements of workers in the sector? Findings from the validation exercise will support and inform training and curriculum development tailored to sector needs, as well as the development of assessment tools to measure pre-training skill gaps and post-training gains.

Start-end date: March 2021 - June 2021
Sponsor: Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium

Youth Program Navigator Pilot

SRDC is conducting ethnographic studies on targeted youth facing barriers using a variety of qualitative research methods (observations, interviews, conversations) to learn how ESDC Youth Employment and Skills Strategy (YESS) funded programs may better connect to hardest-to-reach youth. While YESS is intended to help young people, particularly those facing barriers to employment, get the information and gain the skills, work experience, and abilities they need to make a successful transition into the labour market, this project is concerned with optimal outreach to youth who face additional barriers to accessing services. Policy makers recognize the need to identify potential touchpoints in youths’ daily lives for YESS outreach. The project draws on SRDC’s prior experience working with vulnerable youth and knowledge of the youth ecosystem and understanding of vulnerable communities. Deliverables include reporting on results of the ethnographic study and a collaborative workshop to apply study results and develop program delivery recommendations.

Start-end date: February 2021 - June 2021
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Embedding Evaluation into the SmartICE Technology Production and Employment Readiness Program at the Northern Production Centre

The Technology Production and Employment Readiness Program at the SmartICE Northern Production Centre (NPC) in Nain, Nunatsiavut, offers young Inuit (between the ages of 18-30 years old) a paid, six-week training and employment opportunity. Trainees learn to assemble and test the SmartBUOY, a stationary sea-ice thickness sensor intended for use across Labrador, Inuit Nunangat, and the circumpolar-arctic. In this project, SRDC is working closely with SmartICE to integrate evaluation into regular program activities at the NPC to minimize intrusiveness for staff and trainees and ensure sustainability over the long term. The goal is to consistently collect and track implementation and individual-level outcome data. SRDC will also work with SmartICE and its partners to identify and develop a plan to assess meso- or community-level outcomes of interest, including social, cultural, community, economic, and environmental outcomes. Community stakeholders will be engaged in this process to ensure that the selected outcomes are meaningful and that the evaluation approach is acceptable and appropriate for Nain.

Start-end date: January 2021 - September 2021
Sponsor: SmartICE + Social Enterprise Research

SmartICE: Inclusive Workforce for Arctic Ocean Technology Project

SmartICE is a not-for-profit organization that produces a range of innovative sea ice monitoring technologies that integrate Inuit knowledge with advanced data acquisition and remote monitoring technology. SmartICE operates as a work integration social enterprise (WISE) that provides Inuit with training and employment opportunities and bridges to the mainstream labour market. Grounded in Inuit Societal Values and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ), SmartICE works with Inuit to blend IQ with digital and technical skills and social emotional learning. In this project, SRDC is working with SmartICE to develop, pilot, and evaluate a holistic, culturally contextualized training curriculum for its SmartICE Technology Operators. The project is based on principles of co-design and work is being done in partnership with communities and stakeholders. Project partners include Pinnguaq Association and Ilitaqsiniq, the Nunavut Literacy Council.The project will address the barriers faced by Inuit in remote northern communities and promote their inclusion and participation in the ocean economy. The curriculum will embed literacy and essential skills, digital literacy, and social emotional learning and regulation.  

The curriculum will first be piloted with SmartICE Technology Operators in Nain, Nunatsiavut and Arctic Bay, Nunavut. A model for upscaling the curriculum delivery and implementation across Inuit Nunangat will follow.

Start-end date: November 2020 - August 2022
Sponsor: SmartICE + Canada's Ocean Supercluster

Employment Accessibility Standards for Recruitment and Retention of People with Disabilities

This project is designed to advance research on accessibility standards to inform Accessibility Standards Canada (ASC) as it works with stakeholders and persons with disabilities to create new accessibility regulations that will apply to sectors within its federal jurisdiction. SRDC’s project is focused on employment standards, which was the area most frequently cited in the consultations informing the development of the recently adopted Accessibility Canada Act as the most important for improving accessibility. The goal of the project is to provide information to be used in the development of workplace employment standards for people with disabilities, specifically focused on recruitment and retention practices, which will inform the identification, selection and implementation of compliance and enforcement measures under ASC’s new accessibility regulatory framework. The project involves partnerships with national disability-serving organizations, including Neil Squire Society, Magnet & The Discover Ability Network, and the Autism-Intellectual Disability National Resource and Exchange (AIDE), to engage 8 to 10 federally-regulated employers across Canada in the project’s research activities.

Start-end date: October 2020 - March 2023
Sponsor: Accessibility Standards Canada

Phase 2 of the Full-Time Hunter/Harvester/Guardian Evaluation Framework: Co-designing useable tools

Building on the work SRDC did in partnership with Dr. Shari Fox and MakeWay (formerly Tides Canada), SRDC is supporting the translation of the co-designed Hunter/Harvester/Guardian evaluation framework, into a format useable by community-led programs. Funded by MakeWay, SRDC is working with a graphic designer, and the Aqqiumavvik Society in Arviat, Nunavut, to re-envision the initial framework using a design lens, and add visual components created by Inuit artists.

Start-end date: August 2020 - March 2021
Sponsor: MakeWay Foundation

CreateAction: Inclusive Social Innovation

CreateAction: Inclusive Social Innovation — This project is evaluating the role that six-month work experience opportunities in the social innovation, social finance, and social enterprise sectors can play in supporting youth who are either not in employment, education, or training (NEET). The project is being led by the Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCEDNet) in partnership with SRDC and the National Association of Friendship Centres (NAFC). The project aims to recruit
100 Indigenous youth, new immigrants, young people living in poverty, those who identify as LGBTQ2S+, young people with disabilities, racialized youth, youth in rural/remote communities, and official language minority youth. SRDC is supporting the project design, coordinating tailored supports to participants, and leading the project’s evaluation activities. The evaluation is examining how the placement opportunities facilitate the transition of young people to secure employment in the labour market through the development of skills, workplace experience, professional networks, and tailored wraparound supports. It is also examining how hosting the youth placements will support the capacity and sustainability of innovative social purpose organizations across Canada to hire youth facing barriers from the communities they serve, connect to regional Social Innovation and Social Finance ecosystems, and leverage investments of the Investment Readiness Program and Social Finance Fund.

Start-end date: August 2020 - March 2023
Sponsor: Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCEDNet)

Tri-Cities Local Immigration Partnership: Research on Community Priorities

SRDC is engaged to support S.U.C.C.E.S.S. and the Tri-Cities Local Immigration Partnership (TCLIP) to identify community priorities, measures of success, and strategies to support immigrant integration in the Tri-Cities. The research, guided by a collective impact framework, will help understand the relationships between different community stakeholders, leverage their strengths, and identify opportunities to improve collaboration, community development, and service coordination to better meet the needs of newcomers in the Tri-Cities. More specifically, the proposed research activities will gather the necessary information from diverse stakeholders to help strengthen conditions necessary for successful collective impact projects, and enhance the collaboration and increase the TCLIP’s capacity to use data and evidence to set actionable insights and achieve strategic goals. The research activities include a document and literature review, interviews with key stakeholders, a stakeholder survey, focus groups in multiple languages for newcomers, and facilitated workshops.

Start-end date: June 2020 - December 2020
Sponsor: S.U.C.C.E.S.S.

The Campus Mental Health Action Tracker – a tool to support implementation of the Post-Secondary Student Standard

In response to growing concerns about mental health issues faced by students in post-secondary education (PSE), colleges, universities, CÉGEPs, and polytechnics in Canada are undertaking various initiatives, including direct services, programs, or institutional policies; others are at earlier stages of addressing the issue. To provide the PSE sector with guidance on how to consider and address student mental health, the Mental Health Commission of Canada, in collaboration with CSA Group (as the standards development organization), has championed the development of the CSA Z2003:20 Standard for Mental health and Well-being for Post-secondary Students, now available. SRDC was engaged to develop a self-assessment tool of implementation progress, called the Campus Mental Health Action Tracker; a prototype was produced and tested, and received promising feedback from users. An opportunity to use the Tracker is now being made available to a larger group of postsecondary institutions. The purpose of the self-assessment tool is to help post-secondary institutions identify achievements made to date, as well as gaps and opportunities for further action. Information collected through the confidential online tool will also help inform what implementation of this voluntary standard looks like across the sector, to pave the way for evaluating its effects on PSE institutions and students' mental health and well-being.

Start-end date: May 2020 - October 2023
Sponsor: Mental Health Commission of Canada + Bell Canada + RBC Foundation + Rossy Foundation

Implementing a Virtual Recruitment and Assessment Centre for the Unionized Construction Industry

This project will develop a recruitment strategy integrating sectoral needs analysis, behavioural insights, and social marketing to reach underrepresented groups and increase their awareness, knowledge, and connection to the building trades. A social media based messaging strategy informed by how each of the targeted groups perceives benefits and barriers to entering the trades will connect prospective candidates to an innovative online assessment and matching platform which will help users determine their suitability, connect directly to a Building Trades union, and transition into the apprenticeship system with essential skills tutoring. Unions will help to inform the recruitment strategy and refine the assessment and matching process to ensure candidates have the skills and mentor/support networks to succeed. Phase II of the project will focus on optimization of user pathways and enhanced functionality and content of learning resources. As well, this phase will focus on customizing components to be more responsive to local conditions, recruitment challenges, and union-specific skills needs. Evidence on the effectiveness of these enhancements will be generated through a mixed methods approach, which will include both implementation research and an outcomes study to evaluate the success of the initiative.

Start-end date: April 2020 - September 2023
Sponsor: Future Skills Centre

Developing Federal Capacity in Experimentation

Building on a series of SRDC workshops on Experimentation for the department of Canadian Heritage in 2018-2019, SRDC is working with Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) to build their internal capacity to design, conduct, and/or assess pilot projects applying behavioural insight and experimental methodologies. A one-day workshop delivered by SRDC staff is being augmented with consultation and coaching sessions supporting a smaller team developing a pilot under the federal Experimentation Works program. SRDC is preparing a customized version of workshop materials in PowerPoint form for ESDC, as well as a planning document for designing experiments.

Start-end date: February 2020 - March 2021
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Raise the Grade Phase 3

Since its launch in 2012, the Raise the Grade (RTG) program from Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada (BGCC) has provided youth ages 12-18 across Canada with academic support, career discovery, mentoring, and interest-based activities in dedicated RTG Tech Centres, all within the safe and supportive Boys and Girls Club environment. Now in 46 Clubs, RTG promotes academic engagement among young people, and aims to increase their rate of high school completion and participation in post-secondary education. With funding from RBC Future Launch and ESDC, BGCC has once again partnered with SRDC in a third project phase. This phase will see RTG expanded into five new communities and an even larger, highly trained community of RTG mentors. In addition to analysis of program implementation and youth outcomes, this utilization-focused evaluation builds on learnings from prior phases to develop and pilot enhancements to core program components through an innovative, Club-led Incubator model approach.

Start-end date: December 2019 - October 2021
Sponsor: Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada

Building Capacity for Performance Measurement among Literacy and Essential Skills Practitioners

Following the completion of a comprehensive review and development of measurement options for Literacy and Essential Skills (LES) initiatives, SRDC is working with the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES) to build an online platform to operationalize the recommendations and best practices in designing performance measurement instruments. This platform will represent a standardized and actionable navigation pathway to help LES practitioners and stakeholders choose and customize instruments aligned with their unique training objectives and service delivery contexts. With supports from OLES, we will engage with service delivery organizations to pilot-test the beta version of the platform, troubleshooting issues, and compiling user guides. The process will be done with a point of view toward long-term sustainability, ensuring that the platform can ultimately support the broader performance measurement strategy of the LES sector.

Start-end date: November 2019 - December 2021
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Development of Evaluation Methodology for Arctic Hunter and Guardian Programs

In partnership with Tides Canada and Dr. Shari Fox, SRDC is supporting the development of an evaluation framework for hunter and guardian programs in the Territories and Inuit Nunangat. Hunter and guardian programs have inherent value to Indigenous communities, and generate outcomes related to several components of societal wellbeing, including environmental stewardship, cultural revitalization, and food security; moreover, these benefits accrue across multiple levels – to individuals, communities, and government. Dr. Fox is a researcher who, along with Esa Qillaq, piloted a full-time hunter program in Clyde River, NU. SRDC will work with Dr. Fox to build on her evaluation approach to identify and validate outcomes of interest, with key stakeholders across communities implementing hunter and guardian programs, and communicate these outcomes to wider audiences such as government and philanthropic funders. SRDC will also engage with key government and community stakeholders to co-develop a methodology to economically value the individual, community, societal, and ecological outcomes of hunter and guardianship programs.

Start-end date: August 2019 - March 2020
Sponsor: Tides Canada

BC Partners in Workforce Innovation – Increasing Employment Through Inclusive Workplaces

This two-year demonstration project is evaluating how enhanced employer supports and supported workplace experiences can enable BC employers to achieve their diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategies by establishing more inclusive workplaces, recruiting career-focused talent, and improving overall outcomes for people with disabilities. Through the position of an HR Specialist, the project is engaging employers in the Greater Vancouver region to secure work placements for a minimum of 100 people with disabilities/diverse abilities, with a goal of 75% of employed people with disabilities remaining employed with either the employer partner or elsewhere after six months. The project is building on a previous pilot that demonstrated the potential of this approach to meeting the needs of sectors facing workforce shortages through the further enhancement of recruitment and employer training strategies that can lead to the recruitment and retention of a more diverse workforce.

Start-end date: July 2019 - March 2023
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Enhancing outcomes for vulnerable youth: trauma, mental health, and employment and skills training

Youth who have experienced trauma may be more likely to face multiple and persistent barriers to employment. However, the potential for Trauma- and Violence-Informed (TVI) approaches to improve outcomes remains largely underexplored in the employment and skills training sector. SRDC has been engaged by the Public Health Agency of Canada to build the evidence base on the links between trauma, violence, and health, focusing particularly on the experiences of racialized youth. SRDC will use this conceptual framework to develop a TVI-informed model for employment service delivery, and will validate that model with employment service providers, participating youth, and government representatives. The project team will conduct a literature review, key informant interviews, and focus groups, while also leveraging insights gained from SRDC’s concurrent work in youth employment and skills development. Project results will inform the design and delivery of such programs and potentially, outcomes for youth as well.

Start-end date: May 2019 - July 2021
Sponsor: Public Health Agency of Canada

Evaluation planning support for a new Standard for Psychological Health and Safety of Post-Secondary Students in Canada

In the past ten years, youth mental health – and particularly, student mental health – has become a pressing policy issue. Post-secondary students can experience a wide range of challenges and mental health issues as a result of their exposure to both acute and chronic. With funding support from Bell Let's Talk, The Rossy Foundation, the RBC Foundation, and Health Canada, the Mental Health Commission of Canada has partnered with the CSA Group to develop this new Standard that would provide guidance to Canadian post-secondary institutions in developing psychologically safe and healthy environments for their students. The Standard will provide a best practice framework for colleges, universities, polytechnics, and cégeps to assess hazards, manage risks, and promote improved student mental health. SRDC will work with project partners to establish the purpose, scope, and focus of an evaluation of the new Standard, expected to be released in early 2020.

Start-end date: May 2019 - March 2020
Sponsor: Mental Health Commission of Canada

Integrating Essential Skills Tools for Employment Counsellors

This project is being led by Alberta Workforce Essential Skills Society (AWES) and is building, testing, and refining a training program for employment counsellors to integrate Essential Skills (ES) tools into their practice and services. The ES framework that will be tested during the project will include how to incorporate ES assessments, occupational profiles, complexity levels, and job task terminology related to skills. The project will also reinforce practice by including mentoring and support services to ensure quality as practitioners begin to integrate the ES framework and tools (including all nine Essential Skills) in all their services. As the developmental evaluation partner on the project, SRDC’s research activities are supporting the development process to ensure that the training is practical, delivers results, and has high chances of replication and adoption in diverse sectors and with different populations across Canada.

Start-end date: April 2019 - February 2024
Sponsor: Alberta Workplace Essential Skills Society (AWES)

Enhancing Displaced Workers Literacy and Essential Skills

This three-year research project aims to fill knowledge gaps on what works in the realm of LES supports and training for displaced workers in Canada to improve their employability. The project is aimed at supporting workers who have been displaced from their jobs through planned or unplanned circumstances, with a focus on those workers who are hard to reach or reluctant to access skills training or employment services, and who have low essential skills, including digital skills. The project will be identifying and testing models that have the potential to be adapted and expanded at the national level, by conducting beta tests involving a new Displaced Worker Outreach Team and network partners in select regions of BC to evaluate their effectiveness and scalability. The ultimate aim of the project is to provide the evidence base for the development of a new model that can help address workforce displacement for individuals and communities in Canada.

Start-end date: March 2019 - December 2023
Sponsor: Decoda Literacy Solutions

Framework for the Professional Development of Essential Skills Practitioners

This project is developing and testing a new framework for professional development that standardizes the delivery of Essential Skills (ES) practitioner training in Canada. The framework will provide broad guidance to allow regional flexibility and customization based on the needs of the ES practitioners, while ensuring greater consistency in the delivery of ES practitioner training. To ensure its effectiveness, the project will test the new framework and assessment tools in a pan-Canadian pilot across five regions representing a diverse group of training organizations. The pilot will include a feasibility study as it tests the relevance and usefulness of the application of the framework and competency assessment tools, and will provide recommendations for the professionalization of the ES practitioner field. Ultimately, professionalizing the field of ES practitioners in Canada will ensure better and more consistent outcomes for learners receiving ES training.

Start-end date: March 2019 - March 2023
Sponsor: SkillPlan

Enhancing Pre-apprentice and Apprentice Training Tools (EPATT) Project

The Enhancing Pre-apprentice and Apprentice Training Tools (EPATT) project aims to develop and rigorously test a more structured approach to Essential Skills (ES) training for 14 of the Red Seal construction trades by enhancing pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programming. The enhanced model will be implemented across the country in five regions with 1,250 construction tradesworkers via union training schools and/or their partnering public post-secondary colleges. Project partners include SkillPlan (lead), Canada’s Building Trades Unions (CBTU) and their affiliated contractors, BC Colleges (BCC) and the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC). SRDC will be responsible for the research and evaluation strategy, including the initial needs analysis to better understand the learning needs of non-traditional tradesworkers as well as a quasi-experimental research design for the full pilot test of the training model and ES tools and resources. The project will run for four years from February 2019 to January 2023.

Start-end date: February 2019 - January 2023
Sponsor: SkillPlan

Evaluation support for the Eating Disorders – Promotion, Prevention & Early Intervention (ED-PPEI) model

Eating disorders can be extremely debilitating, yet symptoms often go undiagnosed until the point of medical or psychiatric crisis. While there is a network of treatment services in Ontario funded by the Ministry of Health, these are designed to serve those with the most severe conditions, and to date, prevention programming has been virtually non-existent. The exception to this has been CIHR-funded intervention research trials led by Dr. Gail McVey in partnership with Ontario public health practitioners.

The ED-PPEI model is designed to build capacity across the province for delivery of effective health promotion, prevention, and early intervention programs that address eating disorders and their risk and protective factors. Led by Dr. Gail McVey, the Ontario Community Outreach Program for Eating Disorders at the University Health Network in Toronto is leading an initiative to implement and scale evidence-based training models and programs in all regions of Ontario, beginning with five regional lead sites that are contributing to the provincial build of the framework and implementation plan. SRDC has been engaged to support the provincial build by working with pilot communities to identify their needs and capacities with respect to such programming. Using a developmental evaluation approach, SRDC will also document the successes and lessons learned from the build process, to inform further systems development and performance measurement.

Start-end date: February 2019 - March 2023
Sponsor: University Health Network

SmartICE: Developing responsive approaches to training and employment in Inuit Nunangat

SmartICE is a work-integrated social enterprise aiming to empower northern communities to adapt to increasingly unpredictable sea ice in the circumpolar arctic. SmartICE is launching a Northern Production Centre (NPC) in Nain, Nunatsiavut, which will employ Inuit youth to assemble one of its sea ice monitoring technologies: SmartBUOYs. SRDC will work with SmartICE to design, pilot, and evaluate an innovative model to sustainably train and employ Inuit youth in Nain. SmartICE will work with community stakeholders and youth to develop a contextually responsive training approach and employment opportunity for Nainimmuit youth to facilitate the assembly and testing of SmartBUOYs for use in Nunatsiavut and in communities across the circumpolar arctic. SRDC will support SmartICE by conducting a developmental evaluation of the SmartICE NPC.

Start-end date: February 2019 - December 2019
Sponsor: SmartICE

AAFC – Provision of advisory and technical services on experimentation

SRDC is helping Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to build in-house capacity in conducting sound experiments incorporating elements of randomized control trials, quasi-experimental designs, and behavioural insights in order to improve policy and program development, implementation, and evaluation.

Start-end date: January 2019 - December 2019
Sponsor: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

An innovative model to enhance entry, advancement, and employment outcomes of women apprentices

This project aims to support the entry, retention, and advancement of women in the skilled construction trades. The model will include a series of support services and mentorship opportunities for women seeking or already employed in the skilled trades as well as a number of supports for employers, based on a successful approach used by the Office to Advance Women Apprentices (OAWA) in Newfoundland and Labrador. Services will be provided for at least 750 apprentices and tradeswomen in the provinces of Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. The project is being led by Canada’s Building Trades Unions (CBTU), along with their provincial partners, the Office to Advance Women Apprentices, and the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC). SRDC will be responsible for the research and evaluation strategy, including an outcomes study to measure the effects of the program on participating women in trades and their employers as well as an implementation study to explore best practices. The project will run for three and a half years from December 2018 to May 2022.

Start-end date: December 2018 - May 2022
Sponsor: Canada’s Building Trades Unions

Fresh Gardens and Growing Program Tool Development

Recently, Food Banks Canada has been offering funding to support garden and growing programs and would like to provide food banks across Canada with the tools to make decisions on expanding or creating a garden/growing program. Growing programs can enhance the accessibility of fresh produce for food banks, and the individuals and families they serve. There are many types of growing programs delivered by food banks within the extensive Food Banks Canada network and food banks across Canada more broadly. SRDC will work with Food Banks Canada to develop a resource and set of tools for food banks to assist them in approaching the development of new growing programs as well as providing information about best practices in terms of expanding currently operated growing programs.

Start-end date: November 2018 - February 2019
Sponsor: Food Banks Canada

Connecting multi-barriered newcomers to the Canadian labour market

This project involves the design, delivery, and evaluation of a comprehensive package of employment services for the increasing numbers of refugees and other newcomers who have trouble transitioning from settlement to sustained employment. The program model augments traditional language training by offering a holistic suite of employment services including Essential Skill upgrading, technical training, work placement, and job retention support. A randomized control trial design is used to evaluate program impacts, by comparing the outcomes of those who are randomly assigned to receive the new suite of services with a control group who continue receiving existing services.

Start-end date: July 2018 - March 2021
Sponsor: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

EASIEST – Easier Access to Settlement, Integration, Employment and Skills Training

EASIEST is an innovative research and analysis project that places the newcomer experience at the centre of the design & delivery of settlement services. The overall goal of EASIEST is to help Immigrant Serving Organizations in BC deliver the most appropriate package of settlement services to newcomers at the right time and for the right duration to improve their settlement and integration outcomes. SRDC will use a Behavioural Insights (BI) approach to understand how and why newcomers access services. These insights will then be used to identify, design, and test behavioural strategies to improve services and address gaps. To do this project BI will be combined with a user-centric approach to explore services from the perspectives of newcomers so that innovations deliver services to newcomers that are easier to access, relevant, timely, and socially and culturally appropriate. A four-phase approach of discovery, diagnosis, design, and delivery will be used to bring about improvements in services and outcomes for newcomers, especially vulnerable groups. Findings will be used to support continuous improvement and disseminated widely to contribute to the goal of helping newcomers settle successfully in Canada.

Start-end date: July 2018 - March 2021
Sponsor: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Social Enterprise Impact Measurement Pilot Project

Three-year project to develop a common approach to impact measurement for social enterprises with consortium of national partners under the direction of Carleton University’s Centre for Community Innovation (3ci). Originally co-funded by the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade and Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), the current phase of the project is being funded under ESDC’s Investment Readiness Program to address the impact measurement needs of social purpose organizations across Canada. SRDC is serving as the developmental evaluation partner on the project.

Start-end date: April 2018 - March 2021
Sponsor: Carleton University

Field trials and evaluation of three WISE programs in Northern Simcoe County Ontario

SRDC is implementing a four-year research study in partnership with three work integration social enterprises (WISE) that are part of a co-operative network, known as the Karma Project. These social enterprises provide a range of services and green occupations in demand in the North Simcoe county region of Ontario. The study, spanning four years, will examine the effectiveness of WISE in improving the employability and social inclusion of youth in rural communities. At the same time, it will assess changes in the capacity of social enterprises and examine variations in outcomes by alternative models of work integration.

Start-end date: March 2018 - May 2022
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Development and pilot testing of an innovative demand-led training model to support entry and retention in the Aquaculture sector

This project examines the feasibility of a training model that aims to enhance both career adaptability and essential skills of workers – those more distant from the labour market and/or those recently displaced – in a way that is specifically aligned with the occupational requirements of Newfoundland’s Aquaculture sector. The model’s objectives are to prepare lower-skilled and/or displaced job seekers for both the demands of technical training and subsequent employment, to ensure successful training completion, transition to employment, and longer-term retention.

Start-end date: December 2017 - June 2020
Sponsor: College of the North Atlantic

Developing Canadian Heritage Capacity in Experimentation

SRDC is delivering a series of workshops on Experimentation targeted at federal government officials with responsibilities for the design, delivery, and evaluation of government programs and policies. These one- or two-day workshops include a general introduction to experimentation and the conditions under which it can be most useful, a presentation on the roadmap to implementation, and guidance on how to interpret and use experimental results.

Start-end date: November 2017 - March 2019
Sponsor: Canadian Heritage

Employer tools for workplace mental health

The Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) has been leading efforts to establish a mentally healthy workplace culture in Canada, starting with the National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace. There are many resources to help employers implement the Standard and support workplace mental health more generally, but these may be difficult to locate and use. MHCC is leading an initiative to develop a free, online, bilingual electronic tool to bring these resources together and make them easy for employers to use. SRDC has been engaged to conduct a curated inventory of relevant resources, advise on current gaps, and to provide recommendations on how to address these.

Start-end date: January 2017 - March 2017
Sponsor: Mental Health Commission of Canada

Evaluation support for Quebec Council on Tobacco and Health initiatives – Youth Programs

Despite the significant progress made in recent years, many factors in the youth environment continue to promote tobacco initiation. Between 80% and 90% of current smokers started smoking before the age of 18. To address this issue, the Quebec Council on Tobacco and Health (CQTS) has been implementing a series of innovative and best practice initiatives for the prevention and cessation of smoking among young people for more than 20 years. SRDC was hired to support the evaluation processes of these initiatives by providing technical advice and training to the CQTS.

Start-end date: January 2017 - March 2017
Sponsor: Quebec Council on Tobacco and Health

Enhancing Volunteer Recruitment and Retention

The study explores the motivations and constraints facing volunteer firefighters to support the development of an enhanced set of recruitment and retention practices, particularly in rural communities. The project is a partnership with the Community Development and Homelessness Partnerships Directorate of Employment and Social Development Canada, funded by the Canadian Safety and Security Program. The project seeks to augment existing outreach strategies and messaging to create better alignment with volunteers’ motivations and constraints through multiple methods, including behavioural-based analyses. The feasibility of the new model will be tested through a small-scale pilot.

Start-end date: January 2017 - December 2018
Sponsor: Canadian Safety and Security Program

Immunization Partnership Fund: Development of a Performance Measurement (PM) Strategy

The Immunization Partnership Fund (IPF) aims to improve immunization coverage rates across Canada. It will support public health stakeholders in the development and implementation of projects, tools, best practices, and interventions to meet the objectives of the IPF, which are to enable providers to immunize clients, enhance access to immunization services, and increase demand for immunization. SRDC will support the IPF in developing a logic model and performance measurement framework to systematically monitor, assess, and report on IPF performance.

Start-end date: December 2016 - March 2017
Sponsor: Public Health Agency of Canada

BuildForce Labour Market Information (LMI) study

On behalf of BuildForce Canada, the national construction sector council, SRDC conducted an evaluation of the Labour Market Information (LMI) products that currently support the construction sector. The cornerstone of their LMI program is a demand and supply model, which is used to provide forecasts of both construction investment and labour market demand for skilled trades. This study explores how employers, tradespeople, and other stakeholders such as training institutions currently access, utilize, and value BuildForce Canada’s products. The design included a series of key informant interviews with stakeholders and a regional survey of users of construction sector LMI.

Start-end date: April 2016 - December 2016
Sponsor: BuildForce Canada

Cross-sector knowledge translation and engagement on UPSKILL Health

Upskill Health is a supplementary analysis of data collected through UPSKILL to explore the health-related outcomes of workplace LES training in terms of the physical and mental health of individual workers, as well as workplace performance and business outcomes. Upskill Health builds evidence on the impact of concrete interventions to address key social determinants of health such as literacy and employment, and informs workplace skill development policies and programs by demonstrating that there are measurable health and business outcomes associated with improvements in LES.

With continued financial support from PHAC, SRDC is developing a knowledge translation and engagement (KTE) strategy to share the results and implications of Upskill Health with key government and external stakeholders in the business, LES, and mental health communities. This strategy of facilitating cross-sector dialogue is intended to support the Agency in its mandate of leveraging action on social determinants of health.

Start-end date: March 2016 - March 2017
Sponsor: Public Health Agency of Canada

CPP Long-Term Disability (LTD) Insurer Pilot Project

Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) tested improvements to the application process and information sharing for the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Long-Term Disability (LTD) program. SRDC was engaged to provide technical support with the design, implementation, and evaluation of these pilot programs. The support included methodological guidance in the use of random assignment, the development of evaluation frameworks, and assistance with the implementation, process research, and monitoring of program and research integrity.

Start-end date: February 2016 - June 2016
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Biz Hub

The BC Centre for Employment Excellence is implementing and evaluating Biz Hub. Biz Hub is an industry developed prototype model designed to support business process management and redesign for non-profit employment service agencies. It addresses operational efficiency in processes that may improve services and achieve better employment outcomes for job seekers. The pilot project is conducted in partnership with BC non-profit organizations that provide employment programs and services to job seekers in specialized populations.

Start-end date: February 2016 - January 2019
Sponsor: British Columbia Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation

Employment Support and Income Assistance (ESIA) Transformation Project

SRDC has partnered with Davis Pier Consulting to support a project to transform the Employment Support and Income Assistance system in Nova Scotia. A key component of the project is the development of a client segmentation approach to service delivery that will help the government design and implement targeted interventions to serve clients according to their labour market needs. SRDC is designing this client segmentation model, including both analysis of client and outcome data and the development of criteria/assessment tools to support the model. SRDC is also contributing to the design of targeted interventions to best serve ESIA clients according to their needs.

Start-end date: January 2016 - December 2016
Sponsor: Nova Scotia Department of Community Services

On Track to Opportunities: Linking Transit Development to Community Employment and Training Project – Design and implementation plan

The goal of this project is to develop a detailed design and implementation plan for a workforce development 'pipeline' model to support the implementation of the Metrolinx Community Benefits Framework. The purpose of the 'pipeline' is to ensure Toronto residents that have been historically disadvantaged are engaged and prepared for employment in new jobs related to Metrolinx transit projects in the GTA. This project is building on previous work undertaken by SRDC in 2015, which involved designing a prototype of the 'pipeline' model.

Start-end date: December 2015 - April 2016
Sponsor: Atkinson Foundation, Metcalf Foundation, and United Way of Greater Toronto

BGCC National Youth Outcomes Consultation

As part of a longstanding commitment to quality programming and continuous improvement, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada developed its Model for Success framework to describe the common features of Boys and Girls Clubs’ environments, the core programming they offer, and the desired positive outcomes for children and youth that drive these efforts. To further this work, SRDC was engaged to help BGCC develop a plan for evaluating program outcomes at a national level. This project includes background research, interviews, feasibility assessment, and development of options and recommendations.

Start-end date: December 2015 - April 2016
Sponsor: Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada

HR Policies and Best Practices Toolkit for Restaurants

The BC Centre for Employment Excellence (CfEE) with its partner, MacLeod Silver HR Business Partners, developed an HR Policies and Best Practices Toolkit for Restaurants Canada's 30,000+ members. The toolkit produced supports the objectives of Restaurants Canada to provide its member restaurants with tools on how to recruit and retain employees, particularly those from underrepresented groups such as people with disabilities, aboriginals, new immigrants, and youth. The ultimate aim of this project is to produce an accessible and practical set of tools and resources to enable small- and medium-sized restaurants to achieve the workforce benefits of being more inclusive employers.

Start-end date: November 2015 - March 2016
Sponsor: Restaurants Canada

Identifying leading disability-confident companies in Vancouver

The project aims to develop a list of leading companies that have implemented inclusive practices and made their workplaces welcoming to persons with disabilities. The list will be shared with service providers in the employment services sector in BC, with a view to increase labour market access for persons with disabilities.

Start-end date: November 2015 - May 2016
Sponsor: Vancouver Foundation

Supporting Analyses of Cost Effectiveness for Innovation Strategy Interventions

Through its Innovation Strategy, the Public Health Agency of Canada funds and supports promising interventions to improve population health and reduce health inequalities, particularly in terms of achieving healthier weights and promoting mental health. To strengthen these public health interventions' readiness for scale-up, SRDC developed an approach that provided information on various ways to understand project costs and financial valuation of benefits, and considerations for determining which approach to economic assessment would be most appropriate and feasible for them. These approaches were selected with respect to best practices for conducting economic assessment, consistency with the IS program's focus on equity and population health, and leveraging the extensive data on IS projects' processes and outcomes.

Start-end date: November 2015 - March 2016
Sponsor: Public Health Agency of Canada

Employment and Training Service Integration (ETSI) Strategy for Evaluation and Evidence Generation

The purpose of this project was to develop a framework for conducting effective monitoring and evaluation of the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities' Employment and Training Service Integration (ETSI) initiative. The framework sets the standards for, and provides strategic guidance around alignment, for all evaluation activities supporting ETSI. This work is supporting the Ministry's goal of ensuring it has a comprehensive strategy for evidence generation to inform current pilots, programs and system features being introduced, as well as to guide future evaluation frameworks for programs and system features under ETSI. The project involves: conducting a review of evaluation approaches and existing frameworks from other relevant jurisdictions used to assess active labour market programs; developing a monitoring and evaluation framework of ETSI in consultation with key stakeholders and based on findings from the review of existing frameworks in other jurisdictions; and developing options for a monitoring and evaluation strategy and methodology.

Start-end date: August 2015 - January 2016
Sponsor: Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities

Applying social finance approaches to Aboriginal Labour Market Programs

ESDC Aboriginal Affairs Directorate held a one-day event for social finance experts and informed stakeholders to share knowledge and expertise in developing and implementing social finance approaches into pre-employment, skills development, and training to employment programs for Aboriginal people. SRDC contributed to the planning of the event, moderated panel and group discussions, delivered presentations on social finance approaches, and authored a report of the event.

Start-end date: July 2015 - September 2015
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Measuring Resilience as an Education Outcome

SRDC is investigating the most appropriate means for Ontario postsecondary institutions to assess the impacts of their programs on student resilience. In addition to an extensive literature review, the study assesses how well one of the most promising existing measures of resilience (the Brief Resilience Scale) predicts student coping behaviours over a three-year period post-measurement. The project report includes the combined results and recommendations for next steps based on lessons learned from the literature and from implementing resilience measures in the field.

Start-end date: May 2015 - April 2016
Sponsor: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario

How youth develop career decisions

Making use of existing literature from Canada and abroad, this study examines when, where and how youth use labour market information to make postsecondary education and career-related decisions, including recommendations for the development and refinement of labour market information tools and initiatives. The report includes design considerations, critical features and strategies including those to adopt and those to avoid.

Start-end date: February 2015 - March 2015
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Transformation of CEPEO school readiness programs

This project aims to develop a suite of workshops targeting the parents of children aged 0 to 3.8 years old. Workshops will be offered in schools of the Conseil des écoles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario (CEPEO) starting in the fall of 2015. The intent is to equip parents so that they may better support their child’s school readiness and smooth transition to school. Topics covered will address the following: parent involvement over the short and long term, the construction of a family identity, the notion and importance of attachment to a significant adult, learning through play at home, and resilience in young children. The project is conducted in collaboration with the AFÉSEO (Association francophone à l’éducation des services à l’enfance de l’Ontario).

Start-end date: February 2015 - May 2015
Sponsor: Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario

Measuring the value of Food Banks Canada’s work

SRDC was engaged by Food Banks Canada to assist in the development of an evaluation approach and framework for measuring the social impacts of its work. The approach and framework support Food Banks Canada's effort to measure the impacts of its programs and initiatives supporting the national food bank network, including its food sharing initiatives and research and advocacy, as well as report on the effectiveness of the financial investments its donors make to the network. SRDC assisted Food Banks Canada by: developing recommendations for an evaluation approach and framework for measuring the organization’s social value; developing recommendations for evaluating funding requests; and applying the new framework to prepare a report for donors on the impact of the organization’s Capacity Grant program.

Start-end date: February 2015 - May 2015
Sponsor: Food Banks Canada

Healthy Transitions from High School — A mental health promotion and prevention initiative: Pilot Phase

This project pilot tests and refines curriculum resources designed to help students develop the social, emotional and learning skills needed to navigate the transition from high school. It builds on earlier phases of background research and program development, and includes two components: 1) evaluate the adoption, delivery, and potential effectiveness of the resources in a pilot test in a small group of Ontario high schools and 2) consultations with educators, youth, and mental health experts to fine-tune the resources and prepare for their potential delivery in a greater number of schools. As with earlier phases, this project is conducted in collaboration with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the Ontario School Mental Health ASSIST team.

Start-end date: December 2014 - September 2017
Sponsor: Anonymous sponsor + School Mental Health ASSIST

Workforce development pipeline model

This project is part of Labour Market Partnership between the United Way Toronto and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. As part of the partnership, SRDC created a workforce development ‘pipeline’ model to support the new Eglinton Crosstown Line Metrolinx Community Benefits Agreement. The objective is to ensure Toronto residents that have been historically disadvantaged in the labour market are engaged, assessed, recruited, registered, trained, and employed on new jobs related to the construction of the Eglinton Crosstown Line. The design of the pipeline is a developmental process: planning, testing, evaluating, learning, adapting, re-testing, and re-evaluating multiple iterations of the model.

Start-end date: October 2014 - September 2015
Sponsor: United Way Toronto

Market Study and Feasibility Study related to the offer of trades and applied technology programs in the Greater Toronto Area

The goal of the market and feasibility studies is to increase access to trades and applied technology programs for the Francophone population of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The market study focuses on various potential sources of labour force supply and demand based on labour market trends and economic forecasts in the GTA. Analyses address trades and apprenticeship training needs as dictated by the local economy, with an emphasis on the Francophone population. As for the feasibility study, it presents a partnership-based action plan to identify program and service delivery models in the GTA.

Start-end date: July 2014 - September 2014
Sponsor: Collège Boréal d’arts appliqués et de technologie + Collège d’arts appliqués et de technologie La Cité

Students' exit profile

The goal of this project is to develop qualitative and quantitative measurement tools to collect an exit profile for each student. This profile includes the main attitudes, values ​​and competencies that the Board wants to develop in every student from kindergarten to Grade 12. The tool will be used to populate the Board's Accountability and Improvement Framework. This framework will serve the planning and evaluation needs of teachers as well as those of principals and senior administrators. SRDC's mandate is to provide technical support toward completing the profile.

Start-end date: April 2014 - May 2014
Sponsor: Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est de l’Ontario

Design of a Learning Management System for the Training Group at Douglas College

The project designs a common learning management system (LMS) for the Training Group at Douglas College so that the organization can conduct business analytics and analyze program outcomes in order to inform program development and to demonstrate outcomes achieved to program stakeholders. The project involves analyzing existing data management information collected for individual programs, identifying common and unique data collection needs across programs, and analyzing funder reporting needs and trends to design a common, standardized learning management system and reporting protocol.

Start-end date: December 2013 - August 2014
Sponsor: The Training Group at Douglas College

Measuring the Impact of the YMCA of Greater Toronto on Community Health

The project supports the YMCA of Greater Toronto’s 2010-2020 Strategic Plan and the establishment and continuous improvement of its new Centres of Community by identifying a community health monitoring strategy that cuts across life stages and the community level, the regional level, and the GTA. The project provides a set of options for a community health monitoring strategy based on an analysis of other community health monitoring initiatives in Canada and abroad, data availability and quality for selected indicators in the GTA, and the YMCA’s outcomes of interest related to its programming.

Start-end date: November 2013 - March 2014
Sponsor: YMCA of Greater Toronto

Mapping Experiences with Inclusive Employment

A pilot project delivered in partnership with researchers at UBC to evaluate the use of an online mapping tool to document positive experiences with inclusive employment for 30-35 people with developmental disabilities (self-advocates) across BC. The project is designed to collect first-hand knowledge from self-advocates, their families, employers and service providers regarding the factors that contribute to positive, inclusive employment for individuals with developmental disabilities. It informs the BC Centre for Employment Excellence (CfEE), its partners and other stakeholders about best practices in providing supports and creating inclusive workplaces for individuals with developmental disabilities. Based on the success of the pilot, the CfEE and its partners continue to host the map and explore options for extending this approach to other populations of job seekers facing significant barriers in the labour market. This project is managed by the BC Centre for Employment Excellence, a division of SRDC.

Start-end date: November 2013 - September 2015
Sponsor: British Columbia Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation (with financial support from Community Living British Columbia)

Moving on Mental Health – Toronto Implementation Panel

Working with the Ministry and sector stakeholder groups to develop a report that outlines options and recommendations for system reform consistent with Moving on Mental Health, the Ministry of Children and Youth Services policy framework for child and youth mental Health (A Shared Responsibility).

Start-end date: April 2013 - October 2013
Sponsor: Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services

Transfert de la recherche ontarienne et des connaissances (TROC)

The TROC initiative (or the Ontario knowledge and research transfer) concerns the development of a portal to facilitate knowledge mobilization research and evaluation findings related to the 2011 Politique d’aménagement linguistique (PAL) policy framework in post-secondary educational institutions and apprenticeship programs. The need for such a portal was first identified during a 2011 symposium introducing the PAL policy framework. Participants at the time noted a gap in their capacity to access research which, in turn, hindered their ability to systematically investigate issues related to post-secondary education and training in a Francophone minority setting. As a preliminary step towards establishing a research agenda, the collective will was to initially invest in the design of a portal for the long term which would: (1) include a centralized directory of key stakeholders; (2) house a clearinghouse of scientific publications and grey literature; (3) focus on known best practices; and (4) provide a forum open to all key stakeholders for exchanging publications and knowledge.

Start-end date: April 2013 - February 2014
Sponsor: Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities

Study of the gaps between French-language and English-language postsecondary education and training systems

SRDC reviews the French-language postsecondary education and training system in Ontario through comparative analyses of the French and English systems. Of particular interest is a review of the gaps between the two systems in terms of access, retention, and participation, as well as the quality of services offered by the French-language postsecondary education and training system in Ontario. In close collaboration with the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities and the Ministry of Education, SRDC developed a tool to assist postsecondary and training institutions self-assess the quality of the services they provide to Francophones. The results of this review provide information to both ministries on the strengths of the French-language system and aspects that would benefit from greater attention in order to better serve the student population wishing to pursue studies in French and increase the number of individuals studying in French in Ontario.

Start-end date: December 2012 - March 2013
Sponsor: Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities

SustainAbilities essential skills upgrading project in the Athabasca Oil Sands area - Phase I

Development of a research framework and instruments to support an outcomes evaluation for the SustainAbilities project – a large-scale workplace Essential Skills training initiative in Wood Buffalo Oil Sands region, with some 3,000 frontline workers annually. Phase I involves the design of the research framework and baseline survey instruments. Future phases will involve the design of protocols for implementation research and survey instruments for assessing post-training outcomes, including performance outcomes of workers and firms.

Start-end date: October 2012 - January 2013
Sponsor: DataAngel Policy Research Inc.

Digital Essential Skills Online Training in Rural Small Businesses

SRDC participated in this project to develop, implement, and evaluate an online digital skills assessment and training program intended to increase the digital skills of rural small businesses and their employees, as well as the capacity of businesses to increase these skills. The training was piloted in 10 small businesses, 2 in each of 5 rural communities across Canada, with up to 100 employees participating. SRDC designed skills assessment, employer and employee surveys, and interview protocols and analyzed the data gathered, in order to evaluate the implementation of the digital skills assessment and training tools and to measure the effects of the training on rural small businesses and their employees.

Start-end date: October 2012 - February 2016
Sponsor: Restigouche Community Business Development Corporation

Occupational Health and Safety and Essential Skills

The purpose of this project is to design a field test of an innovative program of occupational health and safety training that embeds individually customized transferable skills enhancement for lower skilled workers. The goal is to enhance the effectiveness of such training in improving OHS outcomes such as worker knowledge, worker and organizational actions that reduce injury risk, and reduced illness and injury rates.

Start-end date: April 2012 - March 2013
Sponsor: Institute for Work and Health

Session on Student Financial Aid Research

To provide expert advice on research priorities for the student financial aid system in Canada at a session hosted by the Intergovernmental Consultative Committee on Student Financial Assistance (ICCSFA).

Start-end date: January 2012 - February 2012
Sponsor: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

Expert panel – Evaluation of the Workplace Skills Initiative

SRDC was asked to participate in an expert discussion panel as part of the evaluation of the Workplace Skills Initiative (WSI). WSI provided funding to projects that tested approaches to workplace skills development and human resource management in Canada, with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises. The evaluation determines the extent to which the WSI was effective in achieving its objectives and identifying best practices and lessons learned for future programming.

Start-end date: December 2011 - January 2012
Sponsor: EKOS Research Associates Inc.

Advancing Career Development Services for Income Assistance Clients: A Test of the Stages of Change and Motivational Interviewing Model in a Public Service Setting

To prepare a detailed design document to implement and test a novel and innovative approach to engage and motivate income assistance clients in Saskatchewan to improve their work readiness and participation in the labour market. The intervention builds on the Stages of Change Research Project that implemented a unique approach in the employment development field in Manitoba. The project also involves designing and implementing a rigorous research approach to explore and measure the results of the proposed intervention.

Start-end date: September 2011 - November 2011
Sponsor: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

Community Maturity Model

With this project, SRDC provided technical assistance to HRSDC to build on prior work done to develop a Community Maturity Model (CMM), a tool that is designed to allow Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs) to assess their own capacity for human resource and community economic development. SRDC reviewed and revised the CMM tool to make it more relevant to the Enabling Fund’s Performance Measurement Framework, and to the role of recipient organizations within their communities. SRDC’s work also focused on making the tool clearer, more practical, and user-friendly.

Start-end date: March 2011 - April 2011
Sponsor: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

Healthy After School Pilot Project

The aim of this project is to develop a program around physical activity and healthy eating in after-school care. The program will provide after-school care providers with a range of supports and resources to encourage and facilitate children to be more active and to choose healthy foods. After-school care sites participating in the project will be trained and given a resource bin that will include some equipment and tools to help staff incorporate the program into their activities. Ongoing training and support will also be provided to staff and they can choose what to use from these resource bins. Lines of evidence: consultations, interviews, observations, surveys, and measurements of physical activity.

Start-end date: February 2011 - October 2012
Sponsor: Public Health Agency of Canada

Sip Smart! Follow-up

To make applications to selected Foundations and other funding sources for funding to conduct a longitudinal study of students involved with the Sip Smart! program.

Start-end date: January 2011 - March 2011
Sponsor: BC Pediatric Society

The SCALES Project

This project is a three-year initiative led by CONNECT Strategic Alliances that seeks to provide career practitioners with tools to identify and meet the Literacy and Essential Skills (LES) needs of unemployed or underemployed Canadians, in an effort to enhance their employment prospects. The purpose of the SCALES project is to increase the capacity of employment counsellors to develop return-to-work action plans that include LES assessments, and to develop a set of tools and best practices that will integrate a range of LES approaches into active employment measures. CONNECT engaged SRDC to develop a field research strategy and research instruments for the purpose of investigating the needs of career practitioners in identifying and addressing clients’ LES needs. SRDC also analyzed the research results and submitted a final report to inform tool development.

Start-end date: January 2011 - May 2011
Sponsor: CONNECT Strategic Alliances

Social Partnerships Roundtable

Participation in an experts’ roundtable on the development and financing of the social economy.

Start-end date: November 2010 - November 2010
Sponsor: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

Citizen-centric Information System

The organization of a one-day seminar that brings together external experts, as well as experts from Statistics Canada and HRSDC, to discuss and validate a proposal on a new citizen-centric information system. The work consists of organizing and facilitating the seminar in early 2011 as well as preparing a final report that summarizes the discussion and incorporates relevant literature and examples of best practices of similar initiatives in Canada and abroad.

Start-end date: October 2010 - May 2011
Sponsor: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

Expert Opinion on Work-sharing Program

This project provided expert opinion and recommendations on ways to ensure the right balance is achieved in Canada’s Work-Sharing Program (WSP) between the policy objectives of averting temporary layoffs, ensuring the well-functioning of the labour market, and containing costs to the EI Account.

Start-end date: October 2010 - November 2010
Sponsor: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science, and Technology

Providing expert advice on accessibility of post-secondary education in Canada.

Start-end date: June 2010 - June 2010
Sponsor: Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science, and Technology

Community Action for Seniors Independence – Evaluation Framework

Workshop facilitation with government officials to develop a logic model for a project delivering non-medical support and services to frail seniors.

Start-end date: September 2009 - September 2010
Sponsor: United Way of the Lower Mainland

Comité d’action local des Promenades de Gatineau

Funded by the Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon as part of an activity of the Québec Enfants’s initiative, the Comité d’action local des Promenades de Gatineau (CAL) is a partnership between local community groups that aims to answer the needs of children, and their families, living in the Gatineau community via different activities. SRDC helped refine the logic model of the six activities already in place to define their objectives and their expected impacts. SRDC designed an evaluation plan and proposed tools to measure the implementation of the activities and follow children’s development. A summative evaluation identifies which activities were the most promising for the children and their families.

Start-end date: May 2009 - July 2010
Sponsor: Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon and Société de gestion du fonds pour le développement des jeunes enfants

Family Dynamics

An evaluation of indicators used to measure family dynamics influencing child development.

Start-end date: October 2008 - October 2009
Sponsor: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

Youth Connect

The provision of technical assistance with the development of an evaluation strategy for the Youth Connect pilot program. Areas of assistance included strategies for the effective use of random assignment in one study site, sampling and recruitment issues, and on the development of data collection instruments.

Start-end date: August 2008 - March 2009
Sponsor: Newfoundland, Department of Human Resources and Employment

Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science, and Technology

Provided expert advice on the role the employment insurance program plays in supporting Canadians’ income security.

Start-end date: May 2008 - May 2008
Sponsor: Subcommittee on Cities of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science, and Technology

Increasing Access to the Labour Market for Persons with Disabilities Who Experience Episodic Periods of Wellness and Illness: Options for Research Demonstration Projects

Start-end date: November 2006 - March 2007
Sponsor: Canadian Working Group on HIV and Rehabilitation

Overview of What Is Known about What Works in the Area of Social Experimentation

Start-end date: March 2006 - July 2006
Sponsor: Human Resources and Social Development Canada

Making Education Work

Provides advice on the random assignment evaluation for a project concerned with increasing educational attainment among Manitoba Aboriginal students.

Start-end date: August 2005 - December 2009
Sponsor: Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation

Research and Services for the Healthy Child Manitoba Office (HCMO)

Providing advice and consultations on the development of data collection methodologies for informing policies on child well-being.

Start-end date: April 2005 - March 2006
Sponsor: Healthy Child Manitoba Office

Feasibility of a Birth Cohort Study

A background paper on the feasibility of designing and implementing a birth cohort study in Manitoba.

Start-end date: March 2005 - May 2005
Sponsor: Healthy Child Manitoba Office

Research and Services for the Healthy Child Manitoba Office (HCMO)

Providing expert advice and design options for a longitudinal survey of parents and children.

Start-end date: April 2003 - March 2004
Sponsor: Healthy Child Manitoba Office

Expert Advice and Participation in HRDC Working Group on Communities

Start-end date: November 2002 - November 2002
Sponsor: National Secretariat on Homelessness

Integration of Government-sponsored Refugees

Design and consultations around options for demonstration projects to improve labour market integration of government-assisted refugees.

Start-end date: January 2002 - March 2002
Sponsor: Citizenship and Immigration Canada

Disability Supports Feasibility Study

A 16-participant pilot project in Ottawa and Vancouver to test the feasibility of providing wider “consumer control” over the acquisition of disability supports that facilitate employment.

Start-end date: December 2001 - June 2003
Sponsor: Human Resources Development Canada

Expert advice and design options for at-risk youth and for frequent users of Employment Insurance

Start-end date: September 2001 - October 2001
Sponsor: Human Resources Development Canada

Technical assistance for the development of the Action Emploi program

Using results from the Self-Sufficiency Project to provide insights in the development of a new program to accelerate the labour market integration of long-term welfare recipients.

Start-end date: January 2001 - January 2001
Sponsor: Ministère de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale du Québec

Advice on the needs for and sources of data on seasonal workers and part-year jobs

Start-end date: June 2000 - January 2001
Sponsor: Human Resources Development Canada

Technical assistance on the costs and benefits of “work first” welfare-to-work programs

Start-end date: August 1999 - October 1999
Sponsor: BC Ministry of Social Development and Economic Security

HRDC Social Policy Vision

Input to the document.

Start-end date: February 1999 - March 1999
Sponsor: Human Resources Development Canada

Evaluation Strategy for BC Benefits

Youth works and welfare-to-work components.

Start-end date: February 1996 - February 1996
Sponsor: BC Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour, Program Evaluation