The Special Problems of Voluntary Organizations

    After our outline had been submitted and the organizational capacity grant had run out, a full proposal still had to be written and more development work remained to be done. No money was available. Even after approval, all recruitment - choosing the 15 participants from 80 applications, doing 30 interviews and setting up the program - had to be done before any money was received.

    Once received, the money allocated to pay a managing coordinator was inadequate. We added all the developmental and monitoring fees to her pay, leaving no money for office, telephone, or travel. We had only $1875 left for a job-finding club. We stretched this to cover all of the expenses of running the project.

Decisions, Decisions

    The sponsoring organization designs the re-entry program within general C.J.S. guidelines. We decided on the length of the program, the length of each component and most important of all, content. An advisory committee of CCLOW members assisted in design as well as hiring and advising the managing coordinator.

     As newcomers to training, we studied other re-entry programs including the B.C. Tools for Trade manual and the Regina Community Plains Pre-trades course. We decided on six weeks of off-site training in career orientation and life skills at the N.B. Community College, one week off-site with the managing coordinator and 13 weeks of on-site training. We didn't include off-site skill training because training-place hosts preferred to do it themselves.

     In addition to the week between off-site and on-site, the managing coordinator spent days with the participants in orientation and setting up a job-finding club. We neglected to label these as instructional days; had we done so, we could have applied for up to $200 per day instructional fees for the managing coordinator as well as money for classroom space, supplies and administrative expenses. The way re-entry is set up, most of the money is for off-site provision of training by the coordinator. This takes many students away from community colleges as well as increasing demands on the managing coordinator. For our project, giving instructional duties to the managing coordinator along with her other work would have been too much.

The Outcome

    Ten of the 15 participants completed the program; seven are employed, most with their training-place hosts; three are still looking for work; two left their training-place hosts when they found other full-time employment, saying that the program had given them the confidence to find these other positions. Being married and having no eligible dependents, these women were receiving the minimal training allowance.

    One woman moved to B.C., one left because of an allergy to dust at the job site; she has not been able to find employment elsewhere. The last woman left because of serious personal problems.

    We have submitted a profile for another re-entry program. The most fundamental reason for our decision to offer another program was the obligation we felt to those 65 women who applied and weren't accepted. We were told to wait for three months from the end of the last program for evaluation. Then C.J.S. would consider another proposal.