OVERARCHING RECOMMENDATIONS

We learned from our project the importance of establishing collaborative processes with the involvement of Discouraged Job Seekers as a primary element. Discouraged Job Seekers are experiencing a considerable number of barriers and their experience and accumulated wisdom needs to direct the most useful way to remove them. We identified nine basic themes that most of the barriers fell into. We made recommendations to address the barriers in each thematic chapter. In this chapter we briefly revisit resiliency theory to present two overarching recommendations.

As noted in our introduction, we adopted the concept of developing “resilience” to inform our analysis. Restating the definition of resiliency:

In the context of exposure to significant adversity, resilience is both the capacity of individuals to navigate their way to the psychological, social, cultural, and physical resources that sustain their well-being, and their capacity individually and collectively to negotiate for these resources to be provided in culturally meaningful ways.[1]

In our project we focused on the barriers to employment in Discouraged Job Seekers’ lives that were the causes of their significant adversity. Our recommendations identify the tools needed for them to develop resilience to navigate back to being active job seekers. Systems need to be in place to continue to hear the voices of Discouraged Job Seekers, to allow them to negotiate for their needs as they arise. Systems need to be in place to take action with job seekers to address the barriers they experience as they are experiencing them.

“Having a wheelchair is not the problem; the lack of a ramp to the building is. [2]

The approach to envision when implementing our recommendations is the building of metaphorical ‘ramps’ or ‘bridges’ leading to the resources the Discouraged Job Seeker needs. The bridges will assist the Discouraged Job Seeker in navigating the way by giving them support – not imposing a solution. Many bridges, leading to many resources that address the whole context of the job seekers’ lives are needed.

Interventions, i.e., bridges, need to address all the ways in which a lack of work affects a person. A focus on re-establishing a person both in the work force and in the community needs to be given equal priority. Discouraged Job Seekers have to develop the resiliency to withstand the challenges of returning to job seeking by developing strengths and supports in other aspects of their lives.

Wide ranging resources such as adequate food and accommodation, access to recreational services, medical resources need to be more accessible. With these available, job seekers having a difficult time with the job seeking process can develop their resilience much easier and can return to job finding quicker after an adverse event.

We are recommending that in all realms of the job finding community that adaptations be made to enable ‘bridge builders’ to be part of the process.

The job finding community in Kings County needs to develop stronger and easier community connections. Discouraged job seekers need to be able to obtain resources everyone needs to live a healthy life. Bridge builders would liaise between the Discouraged Job Seeker and the member of the job finding community that can help them. Once the connection between the job seeker and the organization is strongly established, it is foreseeable that in most cases the role of the bridge builder would gradually disappear. More detail on the role of the bridge builder is discussed in ‘staffing recommendations’.

As we prepared for and began our interviews we felt a discomfort at the prospect of asking participants to bring up potentially painful memories. Instead of being upset by telling their story to us, many participants indicated that they found the interview uplifting and renewing. The isolation many spoke of started to lift because of the interview process. A respectful listening process needs to continue. There are places in Kings County where this kind of process is already occurring: they are the places we successfully found participants.

As resiliency develops participants will become more able to focus on job seeking.

A commitment to a long term process of reintegration into the workforce needs to be made to work with Discouraged Job Seekers. We heard about many efforts Discouraged Job Seekers made to enter the workforce; yet the efforts eventually led to becoming discouraged. Most took a long time to become a Discouraged Job Seeker. It is foreseeable that it will take a long time for them to regain the resiliency to face the challenges of active job seeking and the demands of having a job. In order for this change to take place we envision significant changes in the Kings County job finding community.

To understand the process needed to facilitate these changes we offer another metaphorical image - it is called “The Blanket Effect”.

There is an exercise practiced in therapy and community development circles that sensitizes people to the conditions of those who have had significant adversity in their lives. An individual is asked to lie on the floor, to symbolize being “knocked down” or discouraged, as people around them cover them with blankets, one at a time. The blankets are the conditions that have led to discouragement or the feeling of being “knocked down”. “This is the blanket of poor health”; “This is the blanket of ageism”; “This is the blanket of illiteracy”; and so on. After a number of blankets are placed on the person, they are asked to stand up and do something. They can’t – they are confined by the blankets. People around them then offer the help and support the person needs to remove the blankets, one at a time. “I am the physiotherapist who gives you more mobility”; “I am the tutor who teaches you how to read better”; and so on. Eventually, the person can stand up and get on with their assigned task even with a blanket, or some blankets, remaining.

It will take time and the assistance of the many different members of the Kings County job finding community to help remove the blankets. We identified lack of communication and collaboration as primary barriers. One of the first actions required is for the many members of the community to sort out which blanket(s) they are most effective in helping to remove. There needs to be a place for this sorting to occur and, through that place, information sharing with the community at large.