From left to right Peter Bailey (Free Rein Associates), Kim Lauritsen (Community Futures North Okanagan), Deborah Bromley (ETHOS Career Management Group), Tricia Gueulette (March of Dimes Canada), Valerie Meaney (North Island Employment - NIEFS), Raj Hundal (Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society - PICS), Lori Forgeron (WDCS North). 

Last night I returned from Richmond where we had the final Board meeting of the 2018-2019 Board, convened our Annual General Meeting, conducted board orientation, and had the first Board meeting of the 2019-2020 Board.  I probably shouldn't admit that I was a little concerned about the turnover in the board (5 new and 2 returning members), but am delighted to report that ASPECT leadership is in very good hands! Many thanks to all board members for taking time out of their schedules during a very busy time at their agencies to dedicate to ASPECT.  At our meeting yesterday, the Board Executive and Committee members were decided. Thank you to everyone who stepped up into brand new roles!  They are as at right: Executive Committee President - Valerie Meaney  Vice President - Lori Forgeron  Treasurer - Tricia Gueulette Secretary - Kim Lauritsen  Personnel Committee Deborah Bromley  Kim Lauritsen  Lori Forgeron Valerie Meaney Finance Committee Tricia Gueulette Kim Lauritsen Valerie Meaney Governance Committee Lori Forgeron Raj Hundal Peter Bailey Tricia Gueulette Valerie Meaney We also have a Development Committee, which is a CEO advisory committee and helps identify funding and revenue development opportunities.

During the AGM on Wednesday, we recognized and thanked those leaving the Board of Directors: Annette Borrows, Christine Willow, Robert Bryce, and John Dawson. Also leaving are Stacey Tyers, Doug Preston, Debbie Samsom, and Minakshi Bagai who weren't present. To take a look at the 2018 Annual Report, click here.

From left to right John Dawson, Annette Borrows, Lori Forgeron, Minakshi Bagai, Doug Preston, Debbie Samsom, Robert Bryce, Stacey Tyers, Kim Lauritsen, and missing, Christine Willows.

It's a rather melancholy time of year as I prepare to thank and say good-bye to our board members who are leaving the board of directors. Especially this group as we have accomplished so much together in the past few years.  

Those Who Are Leaving & Have Recently Left

John Dawson has served on the board for 8 years and in the demanding position as president for the past 3 years. He has been my partner, mentor, and teacher as I navigated the CEO position after Norma Strachan's retirement in 2016.  Thanks to his leadership, we have had a team of board members who have provided guidance through one of the financially challenging shifts for ASPECT and helped secure our future for many more years.

Annette Borrows has been a clear voice on the board ensuring that inclusive employment stays at the front of mind. She has donated countless hours contributing to an advocacy charter and will be leaving us to focus on her duties as President of the Canadian Association of Supported Employment. 

Minaskshi Bagai, Debbie Samsom, and Robert Bryce -- our finance committee -- have supported the financial challenges of ASPECT as we moved to more efficient operations. Robert has been serving as Treasurer and I thank him for his support and leadership. Sadly, all three board members have been affected by the new WorkBC contract awards and will not be returning.  

Doug Preston, although retired from the sector, has been utilizing his governance expertise and helped navigate the association through the Societies Act Transition, ensuring that we have checks and balances in our policies and procedures. He has acted as Secretary for the association.

Christine Willow has chaired our Personnel Committee and has brought a level of professionalism to my quarterly reviews while making sure that the business plans and budgets were designed for future growth. 

Stacey Tyers, although her time was short on the board, provided guidance based on her years of board governance, providing a deep understanding of how boards make decisions.

The Year Ahead

Thankfully, Lori Forgeron and Kim Lauritsen have volunteered to remain on the board and take on leadership roles as chair of the governance committee and Secretary respectively. Although new at this time last year, both board members have jumped in and provided valuable and informed guidance throughout the year.

The ASPECT AGM will take place on Wednesday, March 13 at the Four Points Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel in Richmond.  There we will say good-bye and acknowledge those volunteers leaving.  Pleasejoin us to show your appreciation to these dedicated volunteers for their hard work on your behalf over the years.  With two returning board members, we will welcome 5 new board members who like their predecessors, are also leaders in the sector. At the AGM, the nominees will be voted in to serve their first 2-year term.

On behalf of ASPECT members and myself, thank you to John, Annette, Minakshi, Debbie, Doug, Robert, Stacey, and Christine for their generosity of time, expertise and leadership to ASPECT and the employment sector.

Janet Morris-Reade

ASPECT is delighted to represent your interests at the BC Budget Lock Up. This is the time when stakeholders can gain access to the budget and hear the Minister of Finance's speech before it is delivered in the legislature. At 8:30am, we surrender our phones, sign a confidentiality agreement, and promise not to use wifi until the Minister is actually in the legislature delivering the budget. With me in the room are other stakeholders, media, and government staff. It's a perfect opportunity to undertake a lot of meetings in a very short period of time. Here are some highlights:

• This year I wanted to meet Deputy Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, David Galbraith, to introduce myself in person and find out how the answers to questions raised during the WorkBC conference call was going. He said that we can expect them soon and reiterated how the Ministry wants to work collaboratively with ASPECT and WorkBC contractors.
• I hadn't yet met the new Executive Director for Inclusion BC, Karla Verschoor, and wanted to introduce myself, talk about her appearance on the news the night before, and chat about how we can work together on some initiatives. She's only been in the job for a few months, so we made a plan to meet when she wasn't quite so busy.
• I also chatted with Executive Director, Rick FitzZaland, and Director of Programs and Services, Rebecca Lang from the Federation of Social Services of BC. We discussed the funding challenges for our members and possible actions we might take together after the Poverty Reduction Strategy is announced in the spring.
• I visited with several of my contacts who represent employer groups and discussed ASPECT's plans for an Employer-Service Provider Summit in Richmond in June.
• Finally, I sat near the front of the stakeholder group which allowed me to eavesdrop on many of the media interviews, the business stakeholder strategy sessions, and see the Vancouver Board of Trade fill out their BC Budget Report Card for all the cameras.

There's so much that's going on during the Lock Up and I use every moment on behalf of ASPECT members to promote the association, forge partnerships with others, and deepen my understanding of the provincial budget process. This year I picked up some nugget strategies that I plan to use next year. Stay tuned!

Janet Morris-Reade

About a week and a half ago, ASPECT participated in a conference call with the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Hon. Shane Simpson, his Deputy Minister David Galbraith, his Assistant Deputy Minister Chris Brown, ministry staff, and successful WorkBC contractors and their subcontractors. There were approximately 140 lines dialed into the call in which the Minister and his staff walked through key changes in the WorkBC model, intended benefits, and the key performance indicators that they would be monitoring.

The Minister and staff proposed some discussion questions and asked for further questions to be submitted in advance and after the meeting. Some questions were addressed, but the list was long and we were promised that all questions would be answered in a couple of weeks.  During the call, Minister Simpson asked for our members' to help identify and find solutions to some of the expected issues under the new contract, especially pertaining to challenges of rural and remote services providers.  

Accordingly, I have scheduled a virtual discussion meeting to discuss rural and remote challenges under the new contract set for Friday, February 22 from 10:00-11:00 am.  For more details and to RSVP your participation, please go to our website. 

Whether you are delivering a WorkBC contract or supporting one as a subcontractor, ripples of change are being felt throughout the sector.

In an effort to support our members, ASPECT has partnered with Dr. Roberta Neault of Life Strategies Ltd. to provide a 2-session webinar with online learning resources called "Thriving Through Transition".  This workshop will:

• Explore the impact of change, and the transition process on already full lives. 
• Teach strategies for staying positive and optimistic during challenging times. 
• Reflect on participants' careers, exploring what’s next and what’s possible. 
• Examine how the interaction between capacity and challenge impacts career engagement. 

Whether you are suffering a loss of a job or ramping up for a new contract, this professional development opportunity will provide you with the tools you need to come out on top. As always, I welcome your comments and concerns.

Janet Morris-Reade

Some Highlights and Links to Resources from Janet Morris-Reade, CEO

It was great to see so many ASPECT members attending CANNEXUS this year. The program was huge and it was difficult to attend every session I wanted to, but here are some highlights:

Met Anitra Winje of Kootenay Career Development Society.  At right, she is taking an "illegal" selfie with Former Governor General, The Right Honourable David Johnston. This shot is in advance of his speech where they mentioned several times to NOT take a photo with Hon. Johnston.

Attended a panel discussion called "Demographic Shifts, Big Data, and Predictive Models." It was fascinating to learn how LinkedIn and others are using data to overcome the challenges of inclusivity and to anticipate what is expected for the biggest employment shift in generations. Sharing of Open Data at a federal level is in the works.

The federal Future Skills rollout is coming in the next few weeks. CCCBET has a representative position on the 15-person council but I can't disclose who it is until the official announcement after the Federal Budget. This council will come up with a strategic plan to identify Canadian priorities and the Future Skills Centre activities will focus on using evidence-based research to inform new initiatives.

At the "It's Time to Get Decent: Advocacy in Action" session presented by the Canadian Career Development Foundation, we learned that job precariousness has increased 50% in the last 20 years.  More can be found in their paper presented to the federal government.

RBC launched the results of their study "Humans Wanted: How Canadian youth can thrive in the age of disruption" with links to online resources.  The website rbcupskill.ca is designed to identify skills-based clusters then suggest career pathways.  

In the session called "Putting Values at the Centre of Your Leadership, Kofi Hope of the Wellsley Institute talked about knowing your own story and sharing it with others. He referenced the Simon Sinek TedTalk about finding your "why?". 

Congratulations to CERIC CEO, Riz Ibrahim, and his staff for putting on a timely and dynamic program! 

Meeting in the office of the Minister of Jobs, Workforce Development and Labour, Patty Hajdu. Minister Haidu was in St. John's so we met with her (at left) Western Canada Regional Adviser, Joshua Lindner, and Policy Advisor, Douglas Wong. Also in the photo are (centre) Gladys Okine of First Work Ontario and Valerie Roy of AXTRA Quebec. We represented BC's interests through CCCBET ( Canadian Coalition of Community-Based EmployabilityTraining).

This past week I attended the CANNEXUS Conference in Ottawa. My trip on the behalf of ASPECT members always has several parts to it: to meet face-to-face with ASPECT members who are also attending, learn about emerging trends in the sector, to attend the Canadian Council of Career Development annual meeting, meet with my counterpart board members of CCCBET, meet with Federal Government contacts, and of course to networking, networking, networking.  As I write this I'm still unpacking everything that I heard and experienced.   Meeting at the Minister's Office We were successful in our request on behalf of CCCBET (see photo above) to meet with staff from Minister Patty Hajdu's office. The topics we covered on your behalf were: Request for political intervention in shortening the time lag between the close of an RFP to the contract award. We see this as a major impediment in the government's goals to respond to workforce needs quickly as well as a significant hardship for community-based organizations. We reiterated the networks we represent across Canada and in communities throughout the provinces. We also offered our ability to conduct valuable research to inform policy development and implementation. We talked about the opportunity to inform government and government staff about the complex history of Public Employment Services as outlined in Dr. Donna Wood's book Federalism In Action: The Devolution of Canada's Public Employment Service 1995-2015.  We talked about best practices for community consultation before new funding and policy are created and how CCCBET members and the community organizations they represent can assist with that consultation. It was an almost hour-long meeting and much more was discussed, but the above are our main points. For more information on what I heard and saw at CANNEXUS, please see a separate blog post with more information with links to resources. Janet Morris-Reade

It’s been busy here at ASPECT since my blog post to Aspectives last week.  In it, I mentioned that there was concern that some community benefit service organizations were on the verge of closing after being left out of the new WorkBC contract, or if they were included, would see their funding significantly reduced. In response to my post, I received calls and emails from ASPECT members, community stakeholder organizations, one call from the media, and an invitation to meet with Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Honorable Shane Simpson. 

In preparation for my meeting with Minister Simpson and for the follow-up meeting with his staff, I have spoken to 25 of our 98 ASPECT members to find out how they will proceed with the work they do. I’ve received copies of letters, emails, and presentations and spoken to the contract winners and losers (of course, this is speculative since the official announcement has not been made and it is illegal for the contractors to share any information with me). I’ve heard from large multi-service organizations and small specialized service organizations in all areas of the province; both private and non-profit. It is a sad time for many who work in the sector and the announcement of contractors for WorkBC 2.0 (as one member referred to it) will likely not be a good news announcement unless we have detailed information on the financial framework.   

We still don't know what we don't know and under the rules of the procurement process, cannot take action until the official announcement.
 
Thank you to everyone who provided me with information and thank you to Minister Simpson and his staff who welcomed my sometimes-uncomfortable account of what I heard.  We will continue to work toward solutions to challenges in our efforts to support the government and the public service in setting policy.

Once the announcement is made, I will share more with you about what I heard, but until then I remain cautiously hopeful that the new contract will successfully meet the needs of those seeking services and those employers recruiting talent.
 
Janet Morris-Reade

It continues to be a time of transition for the employment service sector as contractors and subcontractors to the WorkBC program transition to the new contracts. No official announcement has been made as I write this, but I am interested to know how the former contractors and subcontractors are faring under the new contract environment. 

We’ve been contacted by The Federation of Social Services of BC and Board Voice who are concerned about the effect of the new WorkBC contract awards on the ability of social service organizations to remain viable within the communities they serve. Is it really feeling like BC non-profits are under attack?

I am always intrigued and delighted by the ingenuity of the service providers to respond to funding shifts and market needs.  As a sector, it is our competitive advantage and is something that I refer to often in my advocacy work to employer stakeholders and government. This ingenuity is not limited to our non-profit members but also our private members: both can be described as community benefit organizations.

For the past two years, I have been a board member for 3rdVoice representing the interests of ASPECT members. We have been working to providegovernment with community-up ideas and provide a collective voice to the needs of a diverse range of provincial organizations, networks, and federations. There have been some successes, but for a variety of reasons 3rdVoice has been challenged to produce statistics and measures to clearly demonstrate the value (both economic and social) of community benefit organizations in BC. Our hope is to mirror some of the effectiveness of the Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN).  

ONN produced an infographic a few years ago that shows the economic impact of non-profits in Ontario, and when you look at the statistics that they have collected, its mind-blowing!  We needthat information in our province to prove to anyone who will listen that community benefit organizations and their economic and social impact is a force to be reckoned with.  

Last week I was in Vancouver meeting with my 3rd Voice-colleagues to discuss among other topics, how we can collect compelling data in BC. We asked questions such as:  How many non-profits are there within BC? Who do we include in our data collection? What kind of data do we collect? How do we gain access to the information we need? and what other organizations should also be at the table?

Over the coming months, our plan as 3rdVoice or as just a collective of community benefit organizations, will be to reach out to several organizations to see if we can collect the information we need. Accordingly, ASPECT will be polling its members to find out our impact on our economic and social health of the province.  As service providers, we know that policing in our communities is negative result to an underfunded community supports.  A healthy and vibrant community service environment saves tax payers’ money in the long run. We just need the numbers to prove it.

As always, I welcome your comments at any time and would like your help collecting statistics to share with my colleagues at 3rd Voice. What statistics do you use to promote your own organization to your funders and community stakeholders? What are your measures of success? Please send me  what you have, copies of your Annual reports, or anything you can that would help us determine what success is for community services in BC. I will keep you posted on this endeavour and share what I can moving forward.

It’s been a challenging week for many within the employment services sector as they are learning the fate of their own employment future. I have been reassured by several of the new WorkBC contractors that they will be reaching out to you, if they haven’t already. Being one who is uncomfortable when things are left up in the air, I empathize with your situation. There continues to be a need for career developers outside of the WorkBC contracts; check out our ever-growing list of job postings for new and exciting opportunities. It is my hope that those currently working within the sector will be able to stay here.

Building expertise in the sector continues to be a focus for ASPECT and this week I met with Dr. Roberta Neault to discuss developing an affordable yet high-quality leadership training path for those who are already leaders and those who are looking toward leadership positions in the near future. We hope to have the details sorted by the beginning of January. 

You may remember from our last week’s Aspectives news, we also have created a two-day RFP workshop in Vancouver providing skills to those who would like to respond to opportunities through BC Bid. Similar to what we offered last year, we are providing more time for learning the process, evaluation and RFP writing skills. Again, Liz Busch, Director, Outreach and User Experience

Strategic Business and Procurement Transformation Branch will be facilitating the workshop. It is amazing to me how she is able to take a fairly dry topic (for me) and make it fascinating. We are delighted that she has agreed to help us out again.

Finally, we are in the process of developing free or economical webinars for those who did not have the opportunity to attend last November’s ASPECT Conference. We are reaching out to conference presenters to see if they would like to present again in a webinar format. The feedback we received from this year’s ASPECT Conference has been the best yet! We want to ensure that everyone has access to the valuable learning available within the sector.

Now that the contract announcements have been made, we can move forward with the advisory committee for the ASPECT Employer-Service Provider Summit which is scheduled for June 4 & 5, 2019 in Richmond. I already have a list of senior practitioners and employment service leaders, but if you are interested and have not told me already, please let me know if you would like to attend our virtual meeting.

I've just returned from Ottawa after an inspiring two days of meetings with career development practitioners and experts from across Canada. ASPECT, along with BC Career Development Association (Lubica Keighery, Executive Director in photo at right) and 33 other organizations, have been asked to be a part of a Supporting Canadians to Navigate Learning and Work National Stakeholder Committee (NSC) to help facilitate multiple stakeholder meetings within our regions. These consultations will have several different levels of engagement and will include a diverse compilation of expertise.

Funded by Employment and Social Development Canada, the Canadian Career Development Foundation and the Canadian Council for Career Development is at the start of a 3-year project to define the scope of Career Development as a profession and the attributes that determine excellence. I'm bound by secrecy (partly joking) to say much more until we have a communications directive in the new year. I'll keep you posted.