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Shortening the
Reach in Outreach:
Standardization and Community Based
Services
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There is a
growing concern
that EIC does
not understand
the importance
of creative,
community-
based services. |
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One the most
unique programs funded by Employment & - Immigration Canada to promote
equality for women in the paid labour market is in some areas the least
recognized and appreciated. The Outreach Program is a national program,
initiated in 1972 to provide responsive, creative, community - based employment
counselling services to disadvantaged groups. Employment & Immigration
Canada (EIC) provides funding to community organizations to sponsor Outreach
projects, which extend innovative employment counseling and support services to
target groups that have a difficult time in the paid labour force due to overt
and covert discrimination. There are Outreach projects for women in most
provinces and territories, as women are the largest disadvantaged group. These
projects have a proven history of offering personal, community-based,
innovative, supportive services in an informal environment. Employment &
Immigration acknowledged, when it initiated Outreach eighteen years ago, that a
government bureaucracy was unable to provide such tailor-made services, which
reflect the differing needs of each disadvantaged group.
Over the years, however, there has been growing
concern that EIC does not understand nor appreciate the importance of creative,
community-based services. More recently, EIC has moved to standardize Outreach
services to such diverse populations as natives, hearing impaired, men
offenders, blacks, post- psychiatric, the blind, rural, urban, youth, and
women. Using the mold of the Canada Employment Centers, EIC is setting rigid
targets and expectations, and basing evaluations of Outreach projects on
standardized quarterly statistical reports. This standardized approach ignores
the reality that different target groups have different employment service
needs.
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Standardisation des services
communautaires
Le Programme de rayonnement lancé en 1972 visait
à fournir des services communautaires de counselling en matière
d'emploi. Emploi et Immigration Canada (EIC) subventionne des organismes qui
parrainent des programmes de rayonnement. Ces programmes ont réussi
à offrir des services personnalisés et novateurs dans un cadre
souple. Récemment, Emploi et Immigration Canada a décide de
standardiser les services de rayonnement en établissant des objectifs
stricts et en fondant les évaluations sur des rapports statistiques.
Ainsi, on s'attachera a fournir des services de Soutien permettant aux femmes
et autres groupes désavantagés de chercher des emplois leur
convenant au lieu de les placer d'office a des postes. En déterminant
avec précision qui peut avoir recours aux services, quels programmes
seront encourages et a combien d'employeurs il faut rendre visite, on impose un
contrôle rigide qui n'a jamais convenu aux centres d'emploi du Canada et
s'oppose a la philosophie des services communautaires.
On devrait au contraire procéder tous les deux ans
à des consultations avec chaque groupe-cible, qui sensibiliserait le
gouvernement aux besoins particuliers de ces groupes et permettrait a ces
derniers d'échanger des données, des méthodes et des
ressources. Au lieu de solliciter pour la forme l'avis des mouvements
populaires qui connaissent a fond les problèmes sociaux du Canada, le
gouvernement préfère édifier sa politique sociale en se
fondant sur I'opinion de quelques privilégiés. |
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