There were many books and articles over the past year that influenced the rural and northern spiral chart seen next page. Cacioppe and Edwards (2005) presented a synthesis of several integral theories that influenced my thinking. A key quote for me was: “Integral theory is a map, a method and a conceptual framework that may provide direction”
(p. 10). The National Institute for Literacy (Stein, 2000) published a guide book that presents a map for adults who are hoping to prepare for the future and presents a community map (p. 9), which also influenced the spiral chart for rural and northern communities as seen in Table 2. Column four in Table 2 relates to the types of questions that could lead the individual members of the community to begin reflecting on their own current life conditions.
The client, or end user of the counselling service, was an important focus of the literature review. Aboriginals in Canada have special considerations relating to the labour-market—no matter if they are in urban, rural, northern, or remote areas. The recently-defunct Canadian Labour and Business Centre published a commentary titled, “The Aboriginal Workforce: What lies ahead?”
(Lamontagne, 2004), which suggested, “literacy levels might be a better predictor of labour market outcomes”
(p. 7). Lamontagne also pointed out that “little is known about literacy levels of the Aboriginal labour force” (p. 7). This article reported that “the employment record of Aboriginal people continues to lag behind that of non-Aboriginal people”
(p. 3). Lendsay (2007), President and CEO of the Aboriginal Human Resource Development Council of Canada, stated, “Canada is experiencing an Aboriginal baby boom … the nation’s youngest and fastest growing human resource”
(p. 1). If the Aboriginal job seeker is a fast-growing resource, the rural and northern EC has significant work to do in preparing the client for the job market. The EC’s relationship to the job seeker is a critical factor in their daily work.