Brain Injury Services

Survivor Employment & Training

Employment Program Pilot Project

This pilot Project began in the spring of 2006 and has received glowing reviews from participants, their supports, partnering agencies and participating businesses.  The Cridge spearheaded this program in partnership with The Rick Hansen Foundation, The Vancouver Foundation, Camosun College, Crews @ Work, and local business leaders. We created supported work enclaves within local businesses in order to establish a setting where individuals with partial skill sets could participate in the workforce within existing workplaces.

Participants were trained at Camosun College with a curriculum that included both class room instruction and hands on work experience.  Participants were supported through the transition from student to crew worker.  Crews were, and some still are, embedded in existing workplaces such as Thrifty Foods, Rogers Chocolates, Carmanah Industries, and BC Mail.  Workers were paid industry wages.

Relationships with local businesses were established through the work experience portion of the training.  We created an employer for the participants by establishing a contractor whose roll was to create enclaves of contract labour within these establishments.  The contractor assumed responsibility for the workers and thus was able to control the work environment to suit the needs of the workers.  Many businesses found this beneficial as they could hire contract labour during peek production periods.  Businesses also reported that they valued the attitude and work ethic of our workers and felt that they provided a positive influence on their workplace.  Our workers reported that they felt valued as contributing members of the workforce.

Lessons Learned

Despite the myriad of successes associated with this program we were unable to establish a sustainable business model for the Contractor.  Our challenges were two-fold.  Firstly, we found that our contractor could not be financially sustained through contracts alone.  Since, we chose to use an independent contractor, it was difficult to subsidize contracts with public or ‘social’ money without the appearance of a conflict of interest.  This challenge can be remedied by establishing a non-independent social enterprise within The Cridge.  This would open up opportunities for multiple sources of funding.  Secondly, the market for contract labour in the distribution sector evaporated with the economic downturn.  The current economic climate has highlighted the need for a business plan that can weather changes in the economy.

Next Steps

We are commited to supporting participants to capitalize on the learning and experience gained in this program. We are commited to keeping the enclaves going.  A few participants continue to be employees in a couple enclaves.  We are looking for individuals with business acumen to create a sustainable business model for the enclaves. Participants are all clients of a local vocatioanal support agency that has been helping them find work outside of the project.  .  Several participants were inspired to continue their learning with Camosun College.  Some of these have gone on to gain employment in a trade.  Others are expanding their literacy.   Many others have found independant enployment on their own.

This project has been invaluble for informing our overall plans to create a continuum of care, support and service.   We have been impressed with the progress of our participants and are inspired to create programing that focuses on capacity building, social inclusion and vocatioal development.  We are interested in sharing our experience and learning in this area.  If you are interested, please contact Mark Fournier, Instructor & Project Facilitator or Geoff Sing, Manager of The Cridge Brain Injury Services.