I was talking about the skills link program. It's part of the youth employment strategy. It's a horizontal initiative. HRSDC's the lead, but we have nine departments and agencies participating. HRSDC's portion of skills link is just over $100 million. Skills link is a program that focuses on multi-barriered youth. Those could be recent immigrant youth, youth with an aboriginal background, single parents, rural youth, you name it. The program is based on an individual perspective. There's an action plan. Each individual is looked at in terms of where they are from, what background they have, what they already bring to the labour market.
An action plan is then put together. It can consist of several different interventions. Some youth are fairly far removed from the labour market, so what you have to do is provide them with basic employability skills. Those could be life skills to get them to the point of getting up at nine in the morning, having to be somewhere at a certain time, working in a group, some of the essential skills that are required to function in the labour market.
The interventions consist of work experiences. Once the youth is ready, and some are already there, all they really need is exposure to the labour market. They need a six to twelve month work experience that connects them with an employer. Another outcome we are looking at is to get them back into school. For some, if you put them into a work experience, let's say in the construction sector, it gives them a flavour of what a job could be like, what a career in that area could be like. It gets them into some sort of vocational training. There are some excellent programs out there. BladeRunners is a well-known program that helps kids get attached to the labour market and helps them get into vocational training. One of the interventions that's provided through skills link is for youth who have done part of their training, who have done part of their apprenticeship and are just lacking the work experience. We connect them with employers.