SP12 – Others

by Mario R. Gravelle

Findings from the Survey of Career Service Professionals were revealed at Cannexus12 (January 23-25, 2012). The survey delved into research and education issues as well as career competency and mobility. The resultant information offers a snapshot of the composition of the career services community including some of its interests and challenges, along with professional development and information needs. Here are a few things that we learned:

by Barbara Williams

FirstWork, a not-for profit organization that supports and advocates for a sustainable youth employment delivery network in Ontario, received funding from The Counselling Foundation of Canada in 2009 for its Cross Canada Dialogues on Youth Career Development in Hard Times Project. This three-year initiative was instituted to bring together youth serving organizations from all regions and employment counselling sectors in Canada to discuss how best to serve the career development and employment needs of the nation’s youth during an economic downturn.

by Shelly D’Mello

The Counselling Foundation of Canada provided a multi-year grant to The Mennonite New Life Centre of Toronto (MNLCT) in April, 2009 to support its Mentoring Internationally Trained Counsellors program. The MNLCT sought this funding, in part, to promote the dissemination and replication of an existing model for mentoring internationally trained counsellors. The end goal is to increase the number of practicing counselling professionals with language and cultural proficiency to effectively serve newcomers to Ontario.

by Christopher T. Sutton

In 2009, The Canadian Hearing Society (CHS) received funding from The Counselling Foundation of Canada to undertake its Transitioning Deaf and Hard of Hearing Youth to Employment Project. This initiative was launched to develop a tool to aid deaf or hard of hearing students to prepare for the transitional phase from high school to post-secondary education or the workforce. This instrument would also be an asset for parents, caregivers and educators of these students as well as career service professionals who provide services to this client group. During the consultation phase, stakeholders suggested the creation of a central website would be preferable to relying on printed literature or materials. As a result CHS set out to develop a website to serve as a central linkage to the array of services and resources that would facilitate the transition of deaf or hard of hearing students from high school to post-secondary education or the labour market.