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A focal point of our project was to learn what methods worked best to find Discouraged Job Seekers in Kings County and make recommendations for recruiting them in the future. In this chapter, we outline what we did to find Discouraged Job Seekers for our research project. In the chapter entitled, Tools for Finding Discouraged Job Seekers we make suggestions for future recruitment strategies. As we were aware of these objectives when we set out, we carefully noted what worked and what didn't work in reaching participants. We recognized we had to be creative and quickly implement as many methods as possible in order to meet the project’s deadline. We therefore researched a variety of referral sources and developed a multipronged recruitment strategy. We initially spoke to individuals who had conducted similar research projects in the area. Their advice was to identify credible individuals (‘informal community leaders’) within small rural communities and liaise with them in order to connect with the Discouraged Job Seekers. Initial outreach to such people did not get a quick response. During our literature review, we found a “Nova Scotia Disabilities Employment Tool Kit” published in 2000. The Tool kit contains information for disabled people seeking jobs, and for employers considering hiring them. The Tool Kit researcher’s search was province wide but based in Halifax (Nova Scotia’s capital city); they had a range of resources available to them for recruiting participants that we did not. We familiarized ourselves with the Tool Kit recruitment process, and noted they also experienced challenges in finding a good sampling of participants. The successes they experienced were felt to be due to having people with disabilities on their research team. People who had credibility in the various communities of people with disabilities, and had previous contact with a variety of referral sources. Neither of the two researchers in our project had an identifiable disability. One had previous ties with the mental health community both as a professional and a volunteer. The Tool Kit also referred to obtaining referrals from ‘community-based, politically active, cross-disability organizations’. We were unable to locate any ‘community-based, politically active, cross-disability organizations’ in Kings County. We did contact the few province-wide organizations like this that were currently active. We did contact some locally-based disability specific organizations, e.g., CMHA-Kings branch, People First. As part of introducing ourselves to Kings County employment services supports we asked those involved with these organizations for ideas on how to find Discouraged Job Seekers. When pre-testing our forms, we asked the people who were helping us where the people who might qualify as participants could/were to be found. We spoke at staff meetings of vocational services, and contacted the local Community Learning Association. We approached library staff, consulting with them as to how to find Discouraged Job Seekers, as they might be aware of those using computers to find jobs. We followed each suggestion as much as possible. One such suggestion that was made many times during the early stages of the project was to not use the name of the research sponsor as part of our title. In Kings County the sponsor, The Flower Cart, is widely recognized as a vocational services organization with a mandate to serve people considered intellectually disabled. We adopted the more generic “Pathways to Work Research Project” as a result of this suggestion. We recognized that we were not seeking only people with disabilities, but anyone who might identify as a Discouraged Job Seeker. As a result, we used strategies that intentionally tried to attract not only people with disabilities, but also members of the general population. We developed brochures, posters and business cards. We purchased a detailed map of Kings County, to ensure that we covered every possible locale. We covered the Kings County region by leaving our outreach materials with any organization or business that might connect us with Discouraged Job Seekers. The process of how we found Discouraged Job Seekers was extremely informative. Our analysis of our findings leads us to suggest that recruitment of Discouraged Job Seeker is dependent on their having first-hand experience with the people recruiting them. We discuss this in detail at the end of the chapter in conclusions.
Our outreach was conducted using primarily print format materials, the materials and direct communication with individuals and agencies working within Kings County. In an attempt to reach those who may have literacy issues we also purchased advertising time with a local radio station that we hoped would attract a portion of our target group. The following tables show what type of approach we used, the area we covered, and the number of participants we obtained from the approach. (Infrequently in the tables a referral is listed as .5. This occurs because we wanted to represent the times a participant referenced an initial understanding of the research from an approach, e.g., advertisement, article, etc. prior to agreeing to be a participant The total for the number of referrals for all of the tables equals the number of research participants plus two referrals that did not meet our criteria, i.e., 31+2=33.)
The results from general public outreach distribution were meager. Although we did not receive any direct referrals from this extensive outreach, we would recommend using a similar kind of outreach for future projects looking for Discouraged Job Seekers. People we spoke to about our project did see the posters and brochures. The awareness of our purpose and credibility when we spoke to interested people about the project was enhanced by our general community visibility. We advertised late in the summer, after we had become concerned that we were not getting enough referrals from other strategies. We had a budget that included funding for this type of advertising and felt it was appropriate to try it. We spoke to the two local radio stations, and opted for the one that had the lower income demographic and had just started operation. (It was more visible in the community at the time of our research.)
When asking about how to find participants, we were referred to a website that is maintained by the staff at the Kings Regional Residential Centre that lists community organizations in Nova Scotia. It had over 100 links. We identified approximately 40 organizations that were appropriate for our search and sent emails to all. We learned a considerable amount about what services are available for some individuals with certain disabilities, and obtained three referrals, two after conversations with staff. We also interviewed a number of leaders of the organizations to assist us in our learning about challenges faced by people with disabilities. As is often the case with website lists there were a number of “dead links”, many of which were for organizations had seemed to be extremely relevant and potentially useful. All were apparently volunteer-based. The challenges of how to keep track of volunteer groups was obvious, frustrating for us, and likely also for people who would benefit from contacting such organizations. Developing our own website took some time. Our main purpose was to make it easy for people to find out the details of the project when we met them briefly. Although it did not recruit a significant number of people, a number of inquiries from interested individuals such as employment staff did mention having looked at it and commented on its helpfulness. The website increased our credibility when introducing our project to new people and organizations.
The newspaper articles brought 1/5 of our total referrals. We think this may be due to the credibility of the columnist who wrote the initial article. When people called to offer to be participants after reading the first article, they referred to the column by the author’s name, rather than simply ‘in the newspaper’. The article was posted on the newspaper’s website. It had the highest number of ‘hits’ for that edition of the newspaper; but, we did not receive any referrals from the website posting. The second run of the same article in a Small Business Section of the newspaper did not have the author’s name, but was very noticeable on the page it was printed on. It also contained a colored picture. This recruited some of the more significantly Discouraged Job Seekers. We had not asked for the article to be run. It was run in the fall after we had obtained all the participants we needed. In order to meet the research deadline we opted to ask these respondents the questionnaire portion of the project over the phone. It was a way for them to feel as though they had been heard without forcing us to do a re-analysis of the work we had completed. We gave them the option of sending in comments via e mail after the phone call. We received significant comments that were very rich in content. There are a small number of groups and organizations in Kings County that are specifically committed to supporting specific groups of people. We reached out to as many as we knew or found out about.
Due to one of the researcher’s previous volunteer and work experience she was familiar with the local clubhouse for people with mental health issues. When she contacted them to introduce the project she was welcomed. The two researchers visited the program three times, two weeks apart each time. We discussed the project each time informally, joining the club for lunch and bringing part of the meal to symbolize sharing of the event rather than being guests. It was not until the third time we visited that we took consent forms and asked specifically if anyone was interested in participating. Of the four participants recruited from the club, two were previously known to the researcher. We approached the organization with responsibility for residential services for people with mental health and intellectual disabilities. We introduced ourselves as being part of The Flower Cart in order to gain more immediate credibility. Three people were recruited from the organization after a staff person spoke with them and arranged for transportation to a meeting with one of the researchers. The three had been given a significant amount of information by the staff person about the project before the meeting. We believe this gave us credibility in the eyes of the three participants. Our visits to food banks and the local Anglican Church which provides a free monthly meal did not result in referrals. However it felt as if we could have developed relationships that may have led to referrals. People we met started conversations with us that reflected a willingness to share their stories. Sitting beside them in the waiting area, or sharing a table for a meal reduced the distance that occurred when we were in front of meetings introducing the project. The soup kitchen was very protective of the need for privacy and respect for those attending and politely turned down our requests to access their users. We were told that all of the material we left with the Department of Community Services was personally handed to each new applicant during the time of our project. We did not receive any referrals from this effort, nor from employment services staff.
Given that neither researcher had been involved with the employment services in Kings County, and were not involved in any related organizations, we felt it was noteworthy that two participants were recruited by personal relationship alone. We used very few pre-test participants, but still obtained two referrals from the pretest participants. We suggest that simply being known in the county was a significant successful strategy in recruiting Discouraged Job Seekers. The description of the experience of searching for Discouraged Job Seekers was intentionally written in detail to reflect the significant amount of time and energy that went into recruiting very few participants. Low-cost, person-to-person contact, and going to locations where potential participants felt they were ‘safe” and it was ‘theirs’, was more successful than advertising and using traditional media. However, the credibility of seeing information in more than one way helped people feel comfortable to contact us. The credibility of the posters and brochures were identified as important by both participants and those making referrals. We would not recommend that only person-to-person recruitment occur. We need to emphasize that the recruiting occurred in the summertime. Seasonal work such as harvesting (specific to Kings County), is at its height during the summer months. In addition, some regular activities that may have led to more referrals were closed, e.g., a drop-in center for single parents, the drop-in shelter for homeless men. We highly recommend recruiting Discouraged Job Seekers during fall or spring rather than mid-summer or mid-winter. Regardless of the season, we believe that developing personal relationships was the primary factor in being as successful as we were in recruiting Discouraged Job Seekers. Our experiences recruiting participants for the project fit into our overall learning from the project. Discouraged Job Seeker, regardless of background and experience, are vulnerable people who need to be approached in gentle ways that allow respectful relationships to develop. We were not well established in the community before the project began. We are fortunate that we were able to be as successful as we were given the relatively short time allowed for relationships to develop and trust to be established. Back to Table of Contents |
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© Pathways to Work Research Project.
Banner photo by Linda Davidson, Side photo by HIRATA Yasuyuki
Banner photo by Linda Davidson, Side photo by HIRATA Yasuyuki
The Pathways to Work Research Project is funded under the Canada-Nova Scotia Labour Market Agreement. 