Participants in this research project work directly for organizations funded by Cree Nation Reserves and the rural and northern areas for Employment and Training Services, Manitoba Government. All participants work in the position of Employment Support Providers directly responsible for the frontline staff offering services in these rural and northern communities. These are the people who really know how bad the problem is, and they are the first ones to begin assessing and recording the skills and abilities of the job seeker. The intake process in a counselling situation is the first opportunity to provide literacy assessments and to refer individuals to appropriate educational or employment programming. With guidance from the participants NILA can promote appropriate Aboriginal literacy assessments and advocate for these types of solutions—not only in communities, but also, to various levels of government.
NILA’s mission is to create holistic approaches to literacy education for all Aboriginals in Canada and beyond. The core areas that NILA hopes to impact can be found in their Business Plan (Anderson, 2003). Two of NILA’s key goals fit very closely with the direction of this project: goal number four, “To promote autonomous Aboriginal learning environments”
(p. 10); and goal number six, “To support quality in Aboriginal literacy education”
(p. 10).
I struggled for some time with the decision to focus this project primarily on Aboriginal lives and well-being. I am aware of the cultural differences between myself and many of the research participants and between myself and NILA’s staff and Board. I relied on my past experiences to present myself always in a safe and culturally appropriate way. I believe the previous time I spent working in Aboriginal communities has been a huge benefit towards my understanding their way of life. To maintain an ethical project, boundaries were established early in the research development process. I primarily followed the guidelines and definition from The Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (1996). Culturally appropriate and sensitive research behaviour was described as:
Conducting research in a way that is comfortable for the participants and is always sensitive to difference, such as ability, age, class, culture, ethnicity, family status, gender, income, language, location, race, and sexuality. Ensuring we do not assume that everyone shares the same values, ideas and ways of being. (p. 15)
ECs in rural and northern Manitoba were given an opportunity to reveal their voices and shared experiences to benefit their profession. This small focus on the role of the first person to address an individual’s ability to work will have a ripple effect that impacts on all the stakeholders. NILA, the Provincial and Federal governments, and the rural and northern First Nations Communities all stand to benefit from improved efficiencies in the employment process for Aboriginal job seekers in Canada.