Human Resources committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee, thank your for receiving us this morning and allowing us to speak to you. The corporation SPHERE-Québec (Soutien à la personne handicapée en route vers l'emploi au Québec) is a non-profit organization establi

Human Resources committee  Here's our third recommendation. SPHERE-Québec recommends that the Opportunities Fund be improved to take into account the actual needs of persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities isolated from the labour market are suffering from a triple disability. In addition to

Human Resources committee  We serve the Montérégie region and we work in cooperation with the specialized employment services of those regions. There is a Montérégie specialized employment service office in Beloeil, I believe. It serves persons with disabilities and helps them enter the labour market. So w

Human Resources committee  I hope I clearly understood the question in English. I'll try to answer you, but correct me if I'm wrong. SPHERE-Québec is an organization that offers its services in Quebec. It is mandated by the Department of Human Resources and Social Development Canada to manage, across Queb

Human Resources committee  SPHERE-Québec receives an average of $3.5 or $4 million annually for persons with disabilities in Quebec. Those amounts are clearly inadequate. Even though they enable us to help between 500 and 700 persons with disabilities each year, there are other needs that must be met. The

Human Resources committee  These are individual measures. So we respond to the needs of one person at a time. For example, we may pay interpretation costs during a training period for one deaf person who is entering a job at a plant. This may involve team meetings or meetings during which that person's sup

Human Resources committee  We focus our efforts more particularly on employment. However, our clientele is often faced with these types of problems, which cannot be dissociated from employment. If a person is unable to find housing before starting to work, we try to find relief housing enabling him or her

Human Resources committee  No, we deal specifically with employment-related problems. However, as I was saying, that's an comprehensive area. The problems that persons with disabilities have can't be viewed separately; they're all interrelated. That's why we work with the partners in the health systems and

Status of Women committee  Good afternoon, committee members. Thank you for having us. SPHERE-Québec, Soutien à la personne handicapée en route vers l'emploi au Québec, is a provincially-incorporated, non-profit organization created by its partners out of their concern for employment and training of perso

Status of Women committee  As you can see from these concrete examples, we at SPHERE-Québec firmly believe that employability and development are the main lever for getting women with disabilities out of insecurity. Today, we would like to recommend that additional funding be allocated to the programs. As

Status of Women committee  When we talk about additional funding, we're proposing that envelopes be dedicated to a specific clientele to avoid confusing them with a lot of people who have different needs. So if we added funding to a dedicated program such as the Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabil

Status of Women committee  Our funding comes from the Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities, a program of Human Resources and Social Development Canada. On average, our annual budget is about $3.5 million or $4 million, for Quebec. We maximize that envelope in order to serve as many people as p

Status of Women committee  We have taken steps to get recurring funding. The program as such is permanent. However, our agreements with the department are annual. A short time ago, we submitted applications for longer term funding, but we haven't received any response.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  In fact, the evaluation was to be completed in 2005, from what we were told. It still isn't completed, for all kinds of reasons, as a result of which the program has been extended as it is until March 2009, pending completion. That's in the normal wake of the program's evaluation