Over the course of several months the literature review uncovered the inter-connecting elements surrounding the rural and northern Employment Counsellor (EC). The Research Question for this study was: “How can Employment Counsellors [ECs] in rural and northern regions best be supported to enhance their effectiveness in helping clients with multiple barriers achieve job success?”
Much of the information available came from statistical government documents and scholarly papers that have been published from previous research. Overall, I found limited access to research regarding the employment of First Nations, Inuit, Aboriginal, and Métis in Canada. Studies revealed that many reserves and settlements in Canada have been incompletely enumerated (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada [INAC], 2004a). The study examined the work and environment of the EC to know how to best support them to succeed. When examining the literature it became evident that there were four distinct topic areas in the life and work for a rural and northern EC: (a) employment counselling, (b) employment systems, (c) rural and northern work–life conditions, and (d) aboriginal employment seekers.
Before we look at the literature related to each of these topics, it is important to understand a framework that allows us to link employment to life conditions.
The context map represented in Figure 3 is based on information from a variety of authors and resources and illustrates the connections between the scope of the EC’s role and the topics in the literature review. There is one arrow for each of the key players in the employment process. Starting from the left, the arrow labelled Support Providers represents the position of the EC who is trying to provide support on the other side of the spiral as indicated by the arrow for the Individual Job Seeker. The EC must try to provide support within the current life conditions of the Job Seeker and these life conditions can be mapped by looking at the health and well-being of all the arrows trying to move upward through the spiral. This means that the EC must simultaneously look at the health and well-being of the individual seeking employment, their place in their family of origin, the community they live in and the labour market that is available, and what it might offer them. The spiral illustrates the path of higher order development as presented by Beck and Cowan in Spiral Dynamics.
In order to understand unique and individual life conditions, there are two basic underlying theories that I felt were important in understanding the integrated nature of the EC’s job. First I felt it important to understand the idea that humans progress and evolve as individuals and this can be observed. Kiesling (2001) described the stages of human consciousness. He linked Maslow, Graves, Beck, and Wilber and quoted Graves as stating that human development is more like “a spiral process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower order behaviour to newer, higher-order systems as man’s existential problems change”
(p. 56). This theory is critical to understanding the supports necessary for ECs is rural and northern Manitoba, as it illustrates the vast area of development required for successful labour force attachment of Aboriginal job seekers.