Community Action Employment Plan: join a group coming to your area or contribute online

In a great presentation by Linda Rolfe of the Washington State Employment Initiative, Linda asks:  “What gives you access to a range of relationships outside your family and allows you to participate on an equal footing?” and the answer (to all her questions in this part of the presentation) was “employment.”   In our many conversations with self advocates and families we’ve noticed a huge difference in the social networks of those who hold jobs and those who do not.   The other thing we’ve noticed is that once they’ve experienced work they want more of it.   In a recent workshop on supported employment by Gordon Fletcher which I supported, the folks in the workshop were clear that the value of work was working with others who looked out for them, appreciated their gifts and had fun with them.

Community Living B.C. has announced a brave new plan not unlike Washington State’s in their  determination to become a world class leader in supported employment:

Our goal is to have a three-year Community Action Employment Plan in place by the fall of 2012. This plan is intended to look at increasing employment opportunities for people who want to work, help with youth transition planning, provide more support for self-employment, and better work opportunities for people who are under-employed or in programs that aren’t work-related. If you are passionate about employment, we want you involved in the conversations and the development of the plan.

 You may find yourself invited to various meetings about the “Community Action Employment Plan” – sixty people, including me, were trained in appreciative inquiry research and have been sent out to gather data which will be collected by CLBC to inform their planning process.   Each of us is to target a group of about a dozen people to host in an informal forum conversation and then to interview another several people who can’t make it to the forum.   If this works, almost a thousand people will be contacted.   As well, folks who want to give input into this plan may do so by going through the online survey site here.   If you’d like to attend the forum at our office, it is at 6:30 on July 3rd.    Please RSVP to Judy at 604-323-1433

We believe we are surrounded by evidence of kindness, sharing and abundance.   If you’d like to share any of the articles or illustrations (not photographs of people or works which are obviously by individuals, who have only given us permission to use their work here) from the 101 Friends blog  you are welcome to do so for the uses of non-profits or social justice organizations, giving credit to www.101friends.ca – a note letting us know either in the comments or by email or twitter would be great!   Copies of our books, posters and media works for use by groups are available at www.spectrumpress.ca  Inquiries about workshops or facilitation can be made to aaron@spectrumsociety.org  Spectrum is a charity, although Spectrum Press and Learning are Social Enterprises, and donations to our work can be made here – specify Research Training and Development if it matters to you, otherwise it’ll be used where it’s most needed.  You can subscribe to our blog as a blog on wordpress, or as a monthly newsletter at the link above.