APPENDIX G

4. "Counselling services in C.E.C.s will provide women with the necessary information to enable them to make decisions about when or not they wish to be trained in non-traditional occupations."
   
   We are interested in learning how the C.E.C. counselling services for women will be changed. Our experience with these services has been largely unsatisfactory. There are a few very special counsellors with excellent skills, sensitive to the needs of their women clients. We know that these counselling often lack the internal institutional support and backing they require in their work with women.
   
   The issue of counselling services has been a serious problem for a decade. Many women's organizations have made recommendations about this over the years. We now wish to learn what new or different steps will be taken to bring about this badly needed attitudinal and behavioural change, and to solve this long term problem.
   
   If placement of women in non-traditional courses becomes a criterion for performance evaluation of C.E.C. counsellors, this might speed up the change process. We also believe very strongly that outside voluntary and educational organizations, in daily touch with the lives of the women your staff are trying to reach, understand the barriers and know what some of the solutions are. These organizations can offer a great deal of training expertise to the C.E.C. counsellors.
   
   
5. "Provincial institutions are encouraged to seek assistance under the Skills Growth Fund to put in place specially designed facilities for the training of women in occupations of national importance which are non-traditional for women."
   
   Your predecessor, Mr. Axworthy, stated that Skills Growth funding would be given to the voluntary organizations as well as the provincial institutions. However, operating funds for programs in voluntary organizations still must go through community colleges. Skills Growth provides capital, but there is no provision for operating.
   
   
6. "Women's organizations will be encouraged to set up private non-profit organizations to develop a capacity to train woman occupations of national importance and / or that meet the special employment needs of women."
   
   If women's organizations are to expand their training capacity they require provision of both capital and operating funds. Skills Growth funding provide capital costs, leaving organizations to find operating funds elsewhere. In our experience, there are no other places to go to obtain operating funds for bridging and skills training programs.
   
   Bridging programs should be provided by community agencies as well as community colleges. The present method of funding all such programs through the colleges, such as the YWCA's Working Skills for Women, in Toronto, appears to be wasteful of money and energy. The connections to the colleges are essential but this should not necessarily entail routing fund to community agencies in every instance.

We would welcome the opportunity of meeting with you to discuss our question and comments, and our recommendations for a province-wide women's Training Institute. We believe that such an organization would vastly improve access to funds, and ensure program development and delivery which will in touch with the reality of women's needs.

Thank you for your continued interest in these issues of common concern.

Sincerely yours,

Rita J. Mifflin
Director, Community
Programs and Services

On behalf of:

Canadian Congress on Learning Opportunities for Women - Toronto
Ontario Association of Women in Education
Ontario Committee on the Status of Women
West End Machining-Toronto
Women Working with Immigrant Women
Young Women's Christian Association - National
Young Women's Christian Association - Toronto
S.T.E.P. - Dixon Hall, Toronto