WHEREAS the current policy of the Ministry of Housing and Social Development requires that all recipients of social assistance must be available for, and actively seeking, employment in order to be eligible to continue receiving benefits; AND WHEREAS several successful projects providing essential skills for work training have been run in communities with significant success in providing many people with basic skills necessary to be successful in the search for a job: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Province be petitioned to change their policy to permit any person to be identified by the local administration of the Ministry of Housing and Social Development as lacking marketable employment skills and be approved as exceptions to the actively seeking work requirement, and be encouraged to participate in an essential skills for work program, all without loss of social assistance benefits.
Ministry of Social Development Ministry of Social Development Ministry policy recognizes that many income assistance recipients are capable of working or looking for work within their current skill capacity. At the same time, policy recognizes that some recipients require additional skills to help them find work. For these clients, the ministry requires recipients to participate in employment programs to become more employable as part of their employment plan. Participation in these programs satisfies the recipients employment obligations, which must be met for the recipient to receive financial assistance. The Ministry has a continuum of employment-related services to which recipients are referred for participation. Service providers across this continuum are selected for their demonstrated ability to move recipients into sustainable employment in the shortest possible timeframe. As income assistance is a program of last resort intended to help clients back into employment as soon as possible, recipients are generally not permitted to combine income assistance with other sources of income, such as training allowances, or to attend programming which may unnecessarily delay a recipient returning to employment. Research has shown that this employment-first strategy is the right strategy, having increased employment rates and income levels and reduced poverty rates for thousands of former clients.