18. Key Results or Outcomes

 What have been the main achievements or outcomes of this program to date?

With no sales force, the program has been voluntarily purchased and implemented by over 50% of Canada’s schools, and by over 50,000 schools in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Hungary and Ireland. The 2007 edition is generating a new wave of excitement across Canada. It is projected that the majority of middle schools in Canada will implement this new program within two years of its Fall 2007 launch. Schools consistently report that attendance is better on days The Real Game is played, students become more engaged with their school work, and communications between students and their teachers and parents is enhanced. The May 2007 Final Report of a US national evaluation by the Center for School Counseling Outcome Research at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with control and experimental groups involving 600 students over two years in five states concludes that The Real Game produces significant increases in: students’ awareness of emerging career opportunities; in students’ engagement in school, in students’ hope and optimism about their future, and in their sense of self-efficacy. Schools also report increased involvement and support by parents, community members and organizations in their career and school-to-work programs.
19. Difficulties or Barriers What difficulties or barriers to success have been experienced by this program, if any? Excellent support was available to create The Real Game, and the five other programs in The Real Game Series, in English and French, through massive Pan- Canadian collaborations. Effective implementation and on-going development require even more support. Canada has a tradition of creating excellent national career resources. Invariably, however, when each new program is delivered, and, like a baby, most needs nurturing and support, federal funding ceases. The federal government declares that it expects the provinces to “carry the ball.” This may work with legitimate commercial applications, but The Real Game is a curriculum. Curriculum, in most academic subjects at most levels, does not make money. Ongoing subsidization is required. That is, in part, why transfer payments for education at all levels are so enormous. The Real Game is an unqualified success, yet it remains a best kept secret to many, and it is still merely scratching the surface of its potential, in concert with other exemplary resources, to impact school-to-work and school-to-life transitions for youth across Canada.