Current Projects
What Are Innovation Lab Projects?
Through a grant provided by the Government of Canada’s Sectoral Initiatives Program (SIP), the Canadian Association for Supported Employment’s Innovation Lab is pleased to announce our partnerships with 10 organizations across the country.
Each organization will pilot and evaluate an innovative approach to increasing the inclusion of people who experience disability in the workforce. The selected organizations each bring transformative ideas and a wealth of experience to identify and break down the barriers that prevent people experiencing disability from securing meaningful competitive employment.
Fit First Technologies
The Jobtimize® project uses technology to match a jobseeker’s natural aptitudes and working style with the employment pathways that would suit them best. Through this partnership, the Jobtimize® platform will be customized for the supported employment sector, to meet the needs of jobseekers who experience disabilities.
Free Rein Associates LTD
The Right Fit project supports both employees experiencing disability and employers who require temporary or seasonal employees in rural regions of British Columbia. The project team will support recruitment, retention, and finding the right match for both jobseekers and employers.
Gateway Association
The Gateway to Digital Inclusion project will scale up the development of the Gateway App, which is a free platform designed with and for the Canadian disability community to foster connections and employment inclusion. The app includes a platform where people experiencing disability can share their unique gifts and expertise, and a job coaching feature to strengthen employment supports and digital literacy skills.
Groupe Convex
The l’Académie Convex project will create an academy to develop and test a new, more objective approach to assessing the skills and abilities of jobseekers experiencing intellectual disabilities, to better understand their strengths, opportunities, and interests.
Inclusion Winnipeg
The Remote Job Coach project is a project to help individuals with intellectual disabilities, or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), become more independent in the workplace. It pairs together promising apps that exist in the marketplace to increase efficiency, collaboration, and encourage feedback and communications. The innovation was initially developed for job seekers/employees in response to COVID-19, and has since been applied to the education system to support work placements and transitions to the workplace.
Level IT up
The Support for Post-Secondary Jobseekers project will initiate partnerships with Career Development Departments in post-secondary institutions to develop and pilot a course to prepare students who experience disability for practicums, co-op, and/or post-graduate employment opportunities.
Meticulon
The Great EQualizer – Technical Services Project will harness innovative technology and a promising approach to research, select, test, analyse and grow supported employment solutions for many sectors with digital workplaces. This innovation builds on 5 years of success with Meticulon’s signature offering, Meticulon Assessment Services (MAS). The nationally-tested MAS platform enables neurodiverse youth and/or those with a disability, their family, professionals, service providers, community organizations, training institutions and employers to “put the individual at the centre of an integrated service delivery model".
Métis Faamii Foundation Inc.
The Building Blocks to Inclusion project will expand on an existing pilot developed in consultation with Indigenous youth, on-reserve educators, Indigenous organizations, and First Nations Chiefs and Councils to address the multiple and unique barriers to employment that Indigenous, neurodiverse Canadians face.
Ontario Disability Employment Network (ODEN)
The Youth Success Strategy is a national supported employment training project, based on extensive research, that will explore the impact of stakeholders including community partners, employers, educators and families on the lives of children experiencing disability, and specifically on their transition from school to work.
SCE Lifeworks
The “Minding the (Service) Gaps” project will address systematic and organizational gaps in supported employment services, particularly those for young adult jobseekers with developmental disabilities who face intersectional barriers such as First Nations clients, newcomers, and those experiencing intergenerational trauma, poverty, and mental health challenges.
Get Involved!
Would your organization like to participate? A second call for proposals will be taking place in Spring 2023 so check out our newsletter for more information about this as well as lessons learned and best practices from our Innovation Lab Community of Practice.
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