Career development and LMI

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

Mapping the Career Mobility of Persons with Disabilities in Canada

This project is examining the historical context, current status, challenges, trends, and emerging practices related to career mobility for persons with disabilities. The project involves a literature review as well as focus groups with persons with disabilities and interviews with other stakeholders, such as employment service providers, career practitioners, and employers. While the research is focusing specifically on the Canadian context, it is also highlighting international comparisons, where appropriate. It is also applying a Gender-based Analysis Plus (or intersectional) lens to the analysis. The objective of this research project is to fill a knowledge gap on the experiences of persons with disabilities with respect to career mobility in support of advancing the Employment Strategy and the objectives of the federal government’s new Disability Inclusion Action Plan.

Start-end date: December 2022 - July 2023
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Health and criminal justice outcomes of furthering education

Future to Discover is a randomized controlled trial which began tracking a sample of 5,429 Grade 9 students originally drawn from 51 high schools in Manitoba and New Brunswick in 2004-05. It tested the effectiveness of two early high school interventions designed to help students overcome barriers to access postsecondary education (PSE): enhanced career education and a guarantee of a grant to students from lower-income families. Previous reports have demonstrated the impacts of offering the interventions separately and together on youths’ later PSE and labour market experiences. This new study uses new linkages to the Future to Discover dataset to estimate the impacts of being allocated to the treatment groups (that obtained increased education) on health and justice outcomes. It thus contributes valuable evidence to the analysis of education as a social determinant of health and justice outcomes.

Start-end date: October 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 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 manufacturers and employers in 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

Promoting the voices of BC's Early Care and Learning Sector

This initiative will amplify the voices of BC’s early care and learning (ECL) sector to ensure full participation of ELC professionals in local, provincial, and federal decision making. Frontline ELC perspectives and knowledge are necessary in moving toward a system of early care and learning in BC that will support economic and social recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Early Childhood Educators of BC, working with their partners, will bring together professionals from across the province, with a specific focus on recruitment of women from groups underrepresented in leadership positions, to engage in collaborative learning, knowledge sharing, and systems focused planning. Over an 18-month period, participants will enhance their leadership skills, build confidence in their abilities, skills and knowledge, and create opportunities to share their expertise with decision makers. By gathering the voices of their peers and communities, participants will use learnings generated through the program to develop and implement localized, community-led childcare solutions as part of local and regional pandemic recovery and response efforts.

Start-end date: February 2022 - March 2024
Sponsor: Early Childhood Educators of BC

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

Plan My Path Plus: Piloting New Approaches to Increase Young Albertans' Access to PSE

The Alberta Government is developing a new tool called Plan My Path (PMP), a website designed to guide students in their postsecondary choices, with the goal to increase the proportion of the province’s high school students achieving success in accessing postsecondary education (PSE). The government will roll out PMP in 2023 as an ongoing service to high school students but wants to know how best to implement this tool to yield optimal outcomes for young people. SRDC is advising on the design of PMP, and testing potentially replicable additional features such as workshops on the tool and the coverage of PSE application fees, that could enhance take-up and use of the tool and hence its efficacy among Grade 12 students. The intent of this is that providing postsecondary education application assistance to youth in their Grade 12 year will improve their transition rates to PSE. The initial participants to receive this assistance will be youth attending high schools with low transition rates to PSE. SRDC will coordinate this PMP Plus demonstration project to pilot the additional features during 2023-24 to determine the impact these additional features have on the success of PMP, to guide the province on the optimal longer-term strategy for the delivery of the program.

Start-end date: December 2021 - March 2025
Sponsor: Alberta Advanced Education

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

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

Skills Compass

Young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) are at risk of becoming socially excluded, with low income and lacking the skills to improve their economic situation. Indigenous youth, and youth who are newcomers to Canada, may face additional barriers to becoming engaged in employment or education. Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan) is leading a pilot project to address potential barriers faced by Indigenous and newcomer NEET youth through a pre-employment training program, wraparound supports, and employment placements. SRDC as the evaluation partner is responsible for developing the evaluation framework and data collection instruments, measuring outputs and outcomes, integrative data analysis, reporting findings, and participating in knowledge mobilization.

Start-end date: October 2020 - March 2023
Sponsor: Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan)

Supporting the launch of Skills for Success

Recognizing the need for a modernized skills framework and a set of tools and structures that is more responsive to evolving industry and worker needs, The Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES) has recently renewed its existing Essential Skills Framework. The renewed skills approach, rebranded as Skills for Success, will be launched and rolled out in the coming months to inform the development of assessments, measurements, and learning materials aligned with the skills demands of the modern labour market. To support the launch, SRDC will, in consultation with a wide range of partners including academic experts, assessment developers, and practitioners, i) review, refine, validate and modernize the definitions and descriptions of each skill in the Skills for Success framework; ii) review and revise where necessary the underlying constructs of each skill; iii) summarize existing evidence and conduct new qualitative and quantitative analyses to validate the links between each skill and labour market outcomes; and iv) update proficiency levels of previously established skills to reflect new competency requirements in the labour market, and explore methods to establish proficiency standards for newly defined skills.

Start-end date: September 2020 - January 2021
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

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)

Assessment of IRCC Settlement Service Impacts

Recently, Statistics Canada introduced a supplementary administrative data module capturing usages of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) funded settlement services to the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB). This project is making use of this enhanced administrative database of newcomers to investigate the feasibility of estimating the intermediate and ultimate impacts of IRCC funded settlement service programs through some non-experimental statistical models. The project examines the journey and determinants of newcomers’ usage pattern of settlement services. The usage pattern will inform the creation of the counterfactual comparison samples to assess the socioeconomic outcomes and impacts of various IRCC funded settlement services. The statistical model will be validated against the data from the randomized controlled trials in the Career Pathways for Visible Minority Newcomer Women Pilot Project before it is applied to assess the intermediate and ultimate impacts of an IRCC initiative.

Start-end date: June 2020 - March 2025
Sponsor: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

Building the evidence base about economic, health and social inequities faced by LGBTQ2S+ individuals in Canada

Research shows that, as a group, gender and sexual minorities – including people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and two-spirit (LGBTQ2S+) – are more likely to live in poverty, face more barriers to employment (including stigma and discrimination), and earn less at work, despite often having higher levels of educational attainment than the general population. These areas of research are still emerging, and major knowledge gaps remain. For example, most research does not examine differences within the diverse LGBTQ2S+ community and does not link people’s experiences in the labour market with health and social outcomes. In addition, most research is from the US and Europe as Canada has very few indicators of gender and sexual minority status in its existing large survey datasets. This makes it difficult to understand the scale and scope of the problem and determine how best to address it through research, policy, programs, or practices (e.g., in the workplace). In partnership with Dr. Sean Waite at the University of Western Ontario, Pride at Work Canada, and the Labour Market Information Council, SRDC will lead this project, which aims to identify key determinants of economic outcomes for gender and sexual minorities in Canada. This work will inform effective program and policy interventions to reduce the socio-economic inequities that LGBTQ2S+ people experience.

Read the Phase 1 Report.

Read the Phase 2 Report.

Read the Phase 3 Report.

Start-end date: May 2020 - July 2022
Sponsor: Women and Gender Equality Canada

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

Empowering Youth for Post-secondary Education Preparedness

This is a project intended to research and consolidate information about best practices to empower youth from lower-income families to be active participants in their own preparation for post-secondary education (PSE). SRDC is undertaking an international literature review of best practices for youth empowerment approaches and a Pan-Canadian environmental scan of existing community programs, services, and supports. As one product, SRDC is generating an inventory of current interventions for PSE preparedness for youth from low-income families, including interventions that address non-financial barriers to PSE.

Start-end date: January 2020 - July 2020
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

Evaluation of BuildForce Canada's Labour Market Information (LMI) Program

SRDC is conducting an evaluation of BuildForce Canada’s Labour Market Information (LMI) program. The cornerstone of this 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 is a follow-up to SRDC’s 2016 evaluation of the program, and is exploring how various stakeholders utilize, value, and rely on BuildForce Canada’s products to inform decisions in the sector. The evaluation design includes a series of key informant interviews with members of BuildForce’s regional LMI committees and a national stakeholder survey of construction sector LMI users.

Start-end date: December 2019 - May 2020
Sponsor: BuildForce Canada

Literature Review on effective labour market programs and services to assist youth and social assistance recipients to integrate into the labour market

ESDC has commissioned SRDC to undertake literature reviews of labour market programs that have been shown to be effective for integrating youth and social assistance recipients into the labour market. The focus is on recent (last five years) activation programs in Canada and OECD countries.

Start-end date: November 2019 - July 2020
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Evaluation Planning and Design: Assessing the Effectiveness of the Government of Canada's Outbound Mobility Pilot

Announced in Budget 2019 as part of the International Education Strategy, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) is piloting a program to encourage participation of underrepresented groups in outbound international student experiences. The pilot program aims to test and evaluate innovative approaches to reduce barriers to studying and working abroad. SRDC is providing advice and recommendations to ESDC in the form of a comprehensive evaluation framework and plan for rigorously evaluating the five-year pilot.

Start-end date: November 2019 - March 2020
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development 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)

The role of career education during high school in postsecondary success

This project seeks to find better ways to support youths’ career decisions and make the case for policies that prolong learning into appropriately aligned postsecondary education. SRDC is using
two rich longitudinal data sources created to test experimental career interventions through the linkage of education records to surveys of youth and parents in three provinces. The data document the lives of 7,000 young Canadians, including their occupational aspirations as high school students at age 14, their postsecondary education and earnings outcomes over 10 years. Research tasks include the team mapping the students’ early collected occupational aspirations to their course and program choices as well as outcomes on leaving high school. SRDC’s researchers are taking advantage of the experimental design, but also using non-experimental methods to analyze the factors over this key period that caused changes in career choices, and altered career pathways. The study builds knowledge about (a) how and when to intervene to assist youth in their career decision making, and (b) for whom supports are effective yet currently lacking. The intent is to help equip the career counselling profession to respond authoritatively to increasingly urgent policy questions about how optimally to structure career education for young people. Positive and negative impacts of interventions and tracking of outcomes following specific mediators of advice (such as parents, teachers, counsellors, peers) would point to future best practices and the development of tools to support the work of counsellors and guide students in their planning and decision making regarding career choices early in, and throughout, high school.

Start-end date: February 2019 - January 2021
Sponsor: CERIC

Evaluation of the Advancing Women in Engineering and Technology in BC Pilot Project

Advancing Women in Engineering and Technology is a two-year pilot project designed to develop recruitment opportunities and improve retention for women in engineering and technology sectors. Applied Science Technologists and Technicians of BC, in partnership with the Engineers and Geoscientists BC and the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies of BC, are delivering this project that will implement diversity and inclusion strategies to increase recruitment, retention, and provide career development to women to lead to a system-level cultural shift within these professions in BC. SRDC has been commissioned to design and conduct the evaluation of the pilot. The project is funded through the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training Sector Labour Market Partnerships Program.

Start-end date: February 2019 - April 2021
Sponsor: Applied Science Technologists and Technicians of BC

Sector-led Evaluation of the Early Care and Learning Recruitment and Retention Strategy in British Columbia

The Province of B.C. is making a $136 million investment in an Early Care and Learning Recruitment and Retention Strategy (R&R Strategy) for B.C.’s Early Childhood Educator (ECE) sector. This sector-led evaluation is part of a larger 10-year plan to increase the quality and availability of childcare spaces in B.C. The evaluation project will help provide continuous feedback for strategies that are implemented. SRDC is helping to develop a framework that will assess the effectiveness of the R&R Strategy. Evaluation questions include: whether there is less turnover in the skilled Early Care and Learning workforce; whether the numbers of certified Early Childhood Educators are better able to meet demand; whether careers in Early Care and Learning become more popular; and whether public confidence in Early Care and Learning is increasing.

Generally, these outcomes are being measured as trends across the Early Care and Learning system in B.C. Evaluation methods include: cross-sectional surveys of providers of early childhood education and care in B.C., and their employees; creating and maintaining a unique database of the province’s providers to include licensed and unlicensed, registered and unregistered carers; public opinion surveys; media and social media analysis; key informant interviews; analysis of micro-data from the 2016 Census; and compilation and analysis of administrative data. SRDC is collecting, analyzing, and reporting on these measures to determine whether the R&R Strategy is on track to achieving its long-term goals and expected outcomes until 2022. A sector steering committee made up of individuals involved in B.C. childcare will guide the work. The project is being led by the Early Childhood Educators of BC, with funding and approvals of project deliverables through the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training.

Start-end date: December 2018 - July 2024
Sponsor: Early Childhood Educators of BC

The Changing Nature of Work: Digital Transformation & Innovation in the Electricity Sector

Technologies related to digitization, automation, artificial intelligence, and green technology are reshaping the structure of work and the required competencies for many occupations in the Electricity sector. In partnership with Electricity Human Resources Canada (EHRC), SRDC is studying the scope of technological change and its potential impacts on the sector. Through a series of consultations with employers, educational institutions, and other stakeholders this project will provide a rich analysis of the context and impacts of forthcoming technological change including its implications for the sector's workforce in terms of occupational demand and supply and the need for strategic investments in education and training.

Start-end date: October 2018 - August 2019
Sponsor: Electricity Human Resources Canada

Pathways to Work: Co-designing improved employment pathways for Inuit youth in Nunatsiavut, Labrador

In Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Inuit youth face many structural challenges including reduced access to sustainable, long-term employment. As in other parts of Canada, many services exist to connect youth with employment, however, there are few, if any, studies that examine how to strengthen Inuit youth pathways to employment in this context. SRDC is working in partnership with community partners to explore two existing challenges to Inuit youth employment in Nunatsiavut: 1) a lack of awareness among employers, community stakeholders, and youth about effective practices to enhance youth employment and how these could be adapted locally, and 2) a lack of alignment between youth’s skills and assets and the available services, resources, and opportunities in Nunatsiavut communities. To enhance awareness and alignment, SRDC and the project leadership team, including partners from Nunatsiavut Government and community programs, will synthesize what is known about effective ways to support youth employment in the region – based on the research literature, promising practice, and local knowledge. This synthesis will be used as the basis for a community-based co-design process for one or more of Nunatsiavut’s five coastal communities (Nain, Hopedale, Makkovik, Rigolet, and Postville). This process will engage local employers, community stakeholders, and Inuit youth in developing priorities and ultimately, a concrete intervention model for youth employment in Nunatsiavut.

Start-end date: July 2018 - December 2019
Sponsor: College of the North Atlantic

S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Connecting Arabic-speaking Refugees to Employers (C.A.R.E.) in the Hospitality Sector Project

This pilot in Surrey, British Columbia is using the behavioural economics concept of “nudging” in order to understand the behaviours and choices of small business employers in the hospitality sector towards recruiting and hiring Privately Sponsored and Government Assisted refugees.

Start-end date: September 2017 - March 2018
Sponsor: S.U.C.C.E.S.S.

A review of the evaluation strategy and framework for the Royal Bank of Canada's Future Launch initiative

In November 2017, RBC will introduce Future Launch, a $500 million, ten-year commitment to the development of innovative programs and supports that will help prepare young people (aged 15-29) for the future of work. SRDC is providing support to the RBC evaluation team with the development of their evaluation framework, data collection strategy, and analytic approach for the Future Launch initiative.

Start-end date: September 2017 - October 2017
Sponsor: Royal Bank of Canada

High School Student and Parent Perceptions of OSAP

This project examines the relationship between aspirations towards postsecondary education and students/parents’ perception and knowledge of the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). The project administers surveys before and after students’ compulsory Grade 10 career studies class, and tracks postsecondary access and student financial aid use over four years, to evaluate provision of new interventions including information on OSAP and the likely actual costs and benefits of postsecondary education. The evaluation framework involves a clustered randomized trial.

Start-end date: August 2017 - August 2018
Sponsor: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario

Developing Provincial/Territorial Capacity for Innovation in Employment and Training Services

Following a Fall 2016 Best Practices session convened for the Forum of Labour Market Ministers (FLMM), SRDC is meeting with provincial and territorial labour market officials to share knowledge about labour market programming. The meetings, which include presentations highlighting innovation in the design and delivery of programs, aim to identify opportunities to promote innovation through learning exchange and collaboration among jurisdictions.

Start-end date: April 2017 - March 2018
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Life After High School Ontario – Phase III

The purpose of Life After High School is to improve the rates at which high school students transition to post-secondary education by reducing the non-financial and financial barriers students face. The program applies lessons from behavioural economics to provide all Grade 12 students at selected Ontario secondary schools with practical support applying for post-secondary education and financial aid. Students are guided through online tools and video in the process of selecting a post-secondary program of their choice, applying for a place in that program without incurring a fee, and applying for financial aid. As options are considered for the delivery of a streamlined Life After High School program in Ontario in future years, SRDC is running the program in 69 low-transition schools in 2016-17.

Start-end date: September 2016 - June 2017
Sponsor: Ontario Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development

Forum of Labour Market Ministers' Senior Officials – Best Practices Session

SRDC was responsible for organizing a half-day session to share innovative approaches, lessons learned, and research and evaluation on labour market programs and service delivery strategies. It featured presentations from a number of jurisdictions on recent projects and initiatives to identify best practices, improve program effectiveness, and foster innovation. SRDC staff presented on three SRDC projects in this area, teaming up with provincial Senior Officials who provided context on how the projects respond to their respective program and policy objectives. SRDC was also responsible for producing an Event Report summarizing the discussion.

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

Labour Market Transfer Agreements summary report

Employment and skills training programming and services in Canada are supported and delivered by federal, provincial, and territorial governments. The federal government provides almost $3 billion annually to provinces and territories through four major bilateral transfer agreements to support training and employment programming for Canadians. The design and delivery of the programs and services funded under these agreements are the responsibility of provinces and territories. This includes programs and services for unemployed workers eligible for Employment Insurance (EI), individuals without recent or sustained labour market attachment (non-EI insured), low-skilled workers, employers, persons with disabilities, and older workers. The 2016 Federal Budget announced new investments for 2016-17 totaling an additional $175 million. This is the first step in a plan to boost support for skills and training through the transfer agreements. To further ensure that these agreements continue to be relevant, flexible, and responsive to new and emerging labour market needs and priorities, the federal, provincial, and territorial governments have collaboratively embarked on a process in the summer 2016 to gather stakeholder input on these important investments. SRDC summarizes the outcomes of the consultations related to the labour market agreements renewal in this report.

Start-end date: August 2016 - September 2016
Sponsor: Ministère du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale du Québec

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

The long-term impacts of offering enhanced career education to Manitoba high school students

This project extends analysis of the impacts of offering Future to Discover (FTD) enhanced career education on Manitoba high school students. While FTD reports to date have covered the 2005 to 2010 period for Manitoba, this extension permits analysis of impacts on later education and labour market participation through to the end of 2014 when the participants were in their mid-twenties. The study examines impacts on education and earnings using tax records that capture outcomes for all 1,044 participants regardless of whether the participants still reside in Manitoba.

Start-end date: February 2016 - October 2017
Sponsor: Manitoba Department of Education and Training

Learning and Labour Market Information Symposium

SRDC organized a learning and labour market information (LLMI) symposium in May 2016 to engage Federal/Provincial and Territorial government senior officials in a discussion with subject matter experts on ways and means to improve the availability and quality of data and tools to inform student choice. In addition to planning the agenda and facilitating the symposium, SRDC conducted an environmental scan, and prepared a synthesis document for circulation prior to the event.

Start-end date: December 2015 - June 2016
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada + Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities

Demonstrating an enriched Kocihta eMentoring Program Model – A Design/Development Phase

The first phase of a project to tackle one of Canada’s major policy problems: too few Indigenous youth achieving successful transition into the labour market. SRDC is working with Kocihta - a national Indigenous charity founded in 2013 by the Aboriginal Human Resource Council - to develop and test an innovative program model. The model bridges career education to eMentoring with the intent to encourage Indigenous youths to identify and pursue their desired career paths, thereby enhancing their educational investments and improving their labour market outcomes. This phase of the project involves designing an enriched eMentoring program model and developing a comprehensive, detailed implementation and evaluation plan for Phase 2. The main ‘developmental’ activities include: continuing discussions with potential collaborators; developing the intervention/delivery model; finalizing the conceptual evaluation framework; developing the evaluation plan, feasibility and market research for low-cost delivery of eMentoring; and identifying potential funders for a subsequent demonstration project.

Start-end date: April 2015 - May 2016
Sponsor: Anonymous sponsor

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

Mentoring Partnerships Pilot for BC Career Development Practitioners

The Centre, in partnership with the BC Career Development Association (BCCDA) and SkillPlan, is testing a new pilot project that examines the role that a structured mentorship program can play in supporting career development practitioners in BC. During the pilot, practitioners have the opportunity to form mentoring partnerships around specific topic areas where they are looking for – or offering – support and guidance, which could include serving clients with particular needs and barriers, pursuing skills upgrading or other professional development opportunities, or training in the latest software or information and communications technologies. All mentors and mentees are provided orientation and training on effective mentoring skills and strategies based on SkillPlan’s established mentorship framework, and participants will be given the opportunity to fill the role of mentors or mentees on topics of their choosing. The BC Centre for Employment Excellence is conducting a formal evaluation of the mentorship program to determine its effectiveness in supporting the professional development needs of CDPs as well as its role in equipping practitioners to provide services and supports to BC job seekers. This project is managed by the BC Centre for Employment Excellence, a division of SRDC.

Start-end date: December 2014 - May 2017
Sponsor: British Columbia Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation

Evaluation of Social Finance Pilots

SRDC is conducting an evaluation of two pilot projects for Essential Skills training based on performance-based funding models. The Skilling UP pilot is led by Alberta Workforce Essential Skills, providing workplace essential skills training to lower-skilled workers in the manufacturing sector. Employers pay up-front for the training, and are reimbursed up to 50% of their investment if their workers achieve targeted skill gains. The second project is a social impact bond (SIB), in which private investors pay up-front for essential skills training for low-skilled unemployed persons, and are repaid their capital plus interest if participants achieve skill gains. Colleges and Institutes Canada is the intermediary for this Essential Skills Social Finance (ESSF) social impact bond, with three College delivery partners: Douglas College, Confederation College, and Sask Polytech. In addition to serving as proof-of-concept of the implementation of the two models, the pilot evaluations are measuring a range of outcomes of interest including skill gains, and indicators of employability and performance measurement.

Start-end date: January 2014 - January 2019
Sponsor: Employment and Social Development Canada

Skills Bridge essential skills pilot project in BC

Skills Bridge offers Essential Skills training with the aim of ensuring that participants in academic, trades training, and apprenticeship programs emerge fully ready for employment. The pilot project is an outcome evaluation of a system of Essential Skills coaching at three sites – Douglas College, North Island College, and SkillPlan. The performance measures include Essential Skills learning gains, student engagement, and grades. The study develops an evaluation framework and survey instruments, and includes a cost-effectiveness analysis. Implementation of Skills Bridge at the three pilot sites informs a larger consortium of educational institutions implementing Essential Skills training for their students. SRDC is a research partner in the pilot project funded by the participating colleges and industry training institutions.

Start-end date: September 2013 - April 2014
Sponsor: DataAngel Policy Research Inc.

Inter-Organizational Career Development Framework and Pilot Deliveries for B.C.'s Non-Profit Sector

This project is designed to produce a career development framework and series of pilots to support the human resource needs of the British Columbia non-profit sector.

Start-end date: July 2013 - March 2014
Sponsor: Vancouver Foundation – Non-Profit Sector Labour Market Partnership Project

The Foundations Pilot Project

This project is a three-year initiative led by the Training Group at Douglas College, British Columbia. It tests: a) whether a skill assessment and upgrading program delivery model targeted specifically to meet the needs of low-skilled job seekers can be successfully implemented across several sites nationally, and b) what impacts the program may have on a variety of outcomes, such as participation in college-level training, employment, and labour market advancement. Approximately 500 job seekers were recruited, half of whom were randomly assigned to receive program services while the other half served as a control group. The study includes an evaluation framework and research design, as well as implementation, impact, and cost-benefit analyses.

Start-end date: July 2013 - June 2016
Sponsor: Training Group at Douglas College

Design for Evaluating an Online Career Development Services Intervention

A study assessing the feasibility of using a random assignment design for the evaluation of the delivery of a Web-based comprehensive Career Development Services (CDS) intervention that can improve the career development of older workers and recent immigrants, enabling them to make meaningful and effective decisions in relation to the labour market and to take action on those decisions.

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

Career Development Services (CDS) – Field Consultations with Canadian Practitioners

A consultative study to identify gaps in services and explore innovative practices in the delivery of employment counselling and training for unemployed lower-skilled Canadian adults. Consultations include focus groups and depth interviews with practitioners involved in the intake, assessment, and referral of unemployed clients as well as training providers in four provinces: Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia.

Start-end date: December 2010 - March 2011
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

Impact of Lowering Non-financial Barriers on Access to Post-secondary Education (Life After High School)

The project aims to develop, implement, and test an intervention to find new ways to lower non-financial barriers on access to post-secondary education. The intervention targets British Columbia high schools with low rates of students entering post-secondary education. A sequence of three workshops delivered to the schools’ Grade 12 students have the intent of encouraging the students to apply for post-secondary education and related student financial aid.

Start-end date: March 2010 - March 2013
Sponsor: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada + Carthy Foundation

Labour Market Information to Help High-School Students Access Post-secondary Education: The “Life After High School Experiment”

Concept paper to assess whether the process of providing information to high-school students about labour markets, their post-secondary options, potential post-secondary program acceptance, and eligibility for financial aid can improve knowledge acquisition and human capital acquisition.

Start-end date: March 2009 - May 2009
Sponsor: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (Policy Research)

Design of a Demonstration Project to Evaluate the Impact of Providing Labour Market Information to Internationally-trained Immigrants

A study assessing the feasibility of using random assignment designs to explore options to improve labour market outcomes for internationally-trained immigrants through different means of LMI delivery.

Start-end date: March 2009 - June 2009
Sponsor: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

CareerMotion

The evaluation of a demonstration project to provide reliable evidence on whether the labour market competencies of recent graduates from colleges and universities can be improved by providing them with job search and career planning tools that are tailored to their needs.

Start-end date: December 2008 - November 2011
Sponsor: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

Design of Possible Demonstration Projects to Assess the Impact of Labour Market Information

A study assessing the feasibility of using random assignment designs to explore options to improve labour market outcomes of three target groups (new immigrants, youth at risk, and small- and medium-size businesses) through the provision of labour market information tailored to their needs.

Start-end date: January 2008 - March 2008
Sponsor: Human Resources and Social Development Canada

Navigating the Labour Market

A short-term classroom economic experiment to probe the relationship between literacy and labour market knowledge, and to assess the impact of a short labour market information intervention on labour market knowledge.

Start-end date: January 2008 - July 2008
Sponsor: Human Resources and Social Development Canada

HRSDC Symposium on “Measuring the Impact of LMI”

Facilitation of the symposium and writing of the Symposium final synthesis report.

Start-end date: July 2007 - September 2007
Sponsor: Human Resources and Social Development Canada

Future to Discover Pilot Project (FTD)

The evaluation of a demonstration project involving 5,400 high-school students in New Brunswick and Manitoba that is testing, through a randomized trial, an alternative form of financial support and enhanced career education as ways to increase youth participation in post-secondary education, especially youth from low-income families. To date, SRDC has published the Future to Discover Pilot Project: Early Implementation Report (2007), Future to Discover: Interim Impacts Report (2009), Future to Discover: Post-secondary Impacts Report (2012), Future to Discover: Fourth Year Post-secondary Impacts Report (2014), Future to Discover: Fifth Year Post-secondary Impacts Report (2016), Future to Discover: Sixth Year Post-secondary Impacts Report (2016), and Future to Discover: Seventh Year Post-secondary Impacts Report (2019).

Start-end date: August 2003 - December 2013
Sponsor: Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation

Facilitation of a “Sounding Board” on Youth Labour Market Indicators/Evaluation for YES Strategic Policy Development

Start-end date: April 2002 - May 2002
Sponsor: Human Resources Development Canada, Employment Policy (Labour Market Policy)