WFWE hosts Jobs Interagency Forum
WFWE EXCLUSIVE
"Wednesday morning, Workforce WindsorEssex hosted a group that included city employees, economic development professionals, and community service providers from throughout Windsor-Essex who gathered to find out where the future jobs will be, and to talk about collaborating to improve service delivery.
“The organizations and individuals here today were very eager to contribute,” said Donna Marentette, Executive Director of Workforce WindsorEssex. The enthusiasm was apparent when she asked who would participate in follow up activities, and every hand in the room went up. “That was a key moment for me. Everybody was saying ‘We’re in.’”
The participants were extremely interested in the presentations on promising sectors provided by Rakesh Naidu; on the Employment Ontario Network transformation given by MTCU's Alicia Summerfield; WFWE's Global Skills Specialist, Michelle Suchiu’s presentation on changes to Citizenship and Immigration Canada-funded employment services to newcomers; and “hot jobs” in the promising sectors given by WFWE's Research and Trend Analysis Specialist, Tanya Antoniw.
Participants were asked to consider three questions for small group discussion:
How are you going to take the new knowledge you’ve learned today and use it to further your work to help attach people to the labour force?
What can we do to raise awareness of the services that exist in the community?
What can your agency do to collaborate to be more effective in helping people get jobs?
Here are the ideas for follow-up. The WFWE team is planning to meet with City of Windsor's Councillor Hilary Payne, Ronna Warsh and Teresa Piruzza to brainstorm next steps based on these ideas.
- Need an open community forum on promising sectors.
- Need one point of contact for the public to avoid confusion.
- Need comprehensive brochures for clients (services) and employers (incentives).
- All EO service providers put their clients in the WEskills database.
- Need targeted industry tables to involve employers.
- Need a similar forum on Education and Training.
- Job Developers need to collaborate.
- Need to eliminate duplication of services.
Many thanks go to the WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation for generous financial support for the breakfast and to Rakesh Naidu for his presentation; to City of Windsor's Councillor Hilary Payne for bringing forward the need for such an event and to City of Windsor's Ronna Warsh and Teresa Piruzza for helping to make it a success; and to MTCU's Alicia Summerfield for her presentation and the Ontario Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities for their ongoing support and encouragement.
Short URL: http://www.workforcewindsoressex.com/?p=3010
