I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak today and address this important topic. There are three areas I hope to cover.
First, I'm going to give you a short background on the Coalition for Persons with Disabilities and our experience in assisting persons with disabilities to find meaningful employment. Then I'm going to let you know what programs work for our client group, and finally, what gaps we see in service, and what isn't working so well.
The coalition was founded in 1985, and since 1990 has successfully operated Employment Access, a full-service employment service for persons with disabilities. In the initial 16 years, we were funded by several programs under Service Canada, until the labour market agreement downloaded employment services to the province, and I have an opinion about that. At that time, we became an on-hold disability service, where we still remain. As an on-hold service, we don't have access to targeted wage subsidies or client support funding unless we approach a mainstream service and beg them to help us.
We work with cross-disabilities and clients who would mostly benefit from these supports. I think the province had a vision of mainstreaming persons with disabilities but is now finding that the lack of expertise in the area of disabilities and accommodation by mainstream services is problematic.
During the transformation to Employment Ontario, I attended a managers conference, and there was someone from the province who stated, and she clarified this was to be off the record, “Client supports should be spent on those deemed most in need but also deemed most likely to succeed.” I tried to clarify who makes the judgment on who is most likely to succeed, as the majority of our clients would never be voted as most likely to succeed in a competitive market, but with the right supports and accommodations, they can indeed be successful. Over 50% of the clients we work with do move on to employment, and many others who are not fully employed go back to school or volunteer in our community.
Over the years, we have used many of the programs offered by Service Canada to try to fill gaps for our clients. We process opportunities fund skills applications for clients who are not eligible for second career, wage subsidies for clients who are opportunities fund eligible, and we have successfully held the skills link contract and several community coordinator projects. We have just completed two employer appreciation events—one is still in the process—through funding from Service Canada.
I see a considerable gap between the funding available for our clients with disabilities under opportunities skills applications and those who are eligible for the provincial second career application. The cap is 7,000 for opportunities and 28,000 for second career, which limits the kind of secondary education that many clients with disabilities can pursue.
With respect to youth programs, skills link programs are designed for youth, and as such, they are pretty effective but don't take into account the realities of dealing with multi-barriered youth with disabilities. Most of the young people who come to us have been refused entry into a mainstream service as not being likely to succeed and too hard to serve.
In one group of 15 young people were the following disabilities: albinism and low vision; visual impairment; limited literacy and numeracy; autism; Asperger's; Tourette's; learning disability, non-verbal; attention deficit disorder and ADHD; schizophrenia; schizoaffective disorder; bipolar; and depression. Some clients were single parents or in conflict with the law.
Of the 15 who started in this group, 14 completed the program and one had to drop out due to a mental health crisis. Seven started work experience immediately. Later, others went on to work experience. Six finished that group, employed full-time, and three returned to school. The remaining participants are still receiving service with our jobs team. Every client who participated left with valuable skills and experience and a lot more job ready than when they started.
We've been told by Service Canada that in order to boost our results, we need to be more selective—again there's that phrase—and pick only clients we feel will be successful.
This is what many services do in order to meet targets, and clients who have more barriers simply fall through the cracks. Every person who has a desire to work has a right to service. We do not discriminate based on the severity of the barriers. Many of our clients are discriminated against simply because of their inability to speak and be understood. Oftentimes it is the hiring processes themselves that prevent them from realizing their goals.
Online applications for even minimum wage positions are difficult and lengthy, and many clients are just overwhelmed by them. Telephone interviews are often difficult for many of our more non-verbal clients. We need to spend more on educating employers around accommodations and the overall accessibility of their hiring standards. We need to have more resources and time to spend on working on some of the essential soft skills that ultimately increase the chances for success.
Now I'm going to talk a little bit about the gaps in service.
One area where there are very limited services available is for autistic youth exiting high school. We have just completed a two-year trial in the high schools, serving as a resource to guidance counsellors from I believe it was 26 different high schools. We served as a resource to guidance counsellors, co-op teachers, parents, and students in assisting to develop a strategy for students with disabilities.
Perhaps the answer to this—and what we found in trying to bring business on to the co-ops—is to develop more social enterprise that can offer an inclusive and safe environment and build capacity toward competitive employment. Business and funding could partner and fill the gap and provide resources for parents who are afraid of what will happen to their children when they can no longer attend school.
Another valuable resource, the practice firm concept, was originally funded by the Province of Ontario. We operated the only one that was entirely dedicated to persons with disabilities. There are over 6,000 practice firms in operation around the world, and while other provinces in Canada continue to fund these valuable services, Ontario has closed all its practice firms.
The practice firm gave practical work applications to our clients who had never worked and allowed them to develop the skills and confidence to be successful. It allowed them to expand their knowledge of our digital environment and current office equipment and software programs, and develop employability skills that employers could look for. The decision to no longer fund these programs has created yet another gap for our clients.
For many persons with disabilities, the reality is that they have either not worked for a long time or have never worked. The wage subsidy is one tool that assists us in marketing our clients and opening the door, but unless we take time to develop essential skills, it won't keep the client employed.
One of the issues facing our youth is not just finding a job, but finding a career and something meaningful. A social enterprise that is based on green energy, on solar installation, on technology would be exciting and rewarding for many of our youth who deserve more than to think they will only be able to get minimum wage jobs.
Am I running out of time yet?