It is essential that counsellors have a grounding in women's issues so that they can identify issues and needs and provide support and possible options. Many participants in our program have histories of abuse, are raising children as single parents and have low levels of self-esteem and self-confidence. Taking into account the various personal situations as well as participants' apprehensions and fears about the program and the prospect of making life changes, we endeavour to ensure that our testing is carried out in a supportive and safe environment. Having only female examiners and counsellors has made a huge difference in creating such an environment. Other forms of support include supplying vocabulary sheets, facilitating comprehension during interest testing and providing supportive counselling throughout the program. We also follow-up with participants at two week and six month intervals after they have completed the program.

But the most important source of support are other group members. Participants are encouraged, and take the opportunity, to connect with each other through the Life Skills workshops. Although these workshops are designed to provide career planning information such as decision-making, labour market trends and goal setting, they are invaluable in boosting women's sense of themselves, the validity of their goals and their motivation to achieve them. One of the most reassuring discoveries for participants is that they are not alone in their difficulties and that they share the goal of wanting to improve their skills or education with the objective of finding employment.

Other practical and concrete forms of support include using tests that are free of gender- biased language and ensuring that our own language is free from bias so that our interaction with participants does not become another barrier. When discussing work options, we use a range of occupational examples including non-traditional work and we make sure that all information is presented in a clear manner, taking into consideration various academic levels or English comprehension. Finally, participants are encouraged to critically question their test results and to evaluate how the results make sense to them. We strongly believe that women's own validation of their results allows them to be the "best experts" on themselves, putting decision-making power in their hands.

A counsellor's use of her own experience is another effective way to reassure anxious participants and normalize their experiences of testing. Most program staff have at some point taken these same tests and are in a position to share how, for example, being timed while writing an ability test is stressful and that test outcomes are varied. This also helps to present counsellors as role- models for test-taking and makes experiences of frustration feel normal while emphasizing that every one has individual areas of strength.

Another practical way we attempt to reduce anxieties and provide support is to require that all entrants to our assessment program attend an academic refresher session in which basic math and English concepts are reviewed and a refresher package is presented to each person. These sessions have been extremely effective in helping women remember concepts they may have forgotten so that they are better prepared for the educational testing that is part of the assessment.

The current and on-going unprecedented cuts to social spending have increased participants' anxieties and their fears that poor performance on educational testing will prevent access to training programs; they feel a great deal of pressure to "excel," assuming that test results determine acceptance. To attempt to alleviate the stress, we emphasize that testing is only one aspect of entrance requirements and that the primary determinant is usually a personal interview. However, we also caution that if a woman is not academically ready for training, referral to further upgrading would be in her best interests. We also advise participants to develop contingency plans and not to consider only one option or training program.