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Georgia Quartaro, Ph.D., George Brown College Jenny Horsman, Ed.D., Spiral Community Resource Group Jaswant Kaur Bajwa, Ph.D., Anna Willats, B.A., Mandy Bonisteel, R.N., George Brown College
Canada’s skilled labour shortage is expected to reach 1.2 million people by 2025. Ontario is expected to face a shortage of skilled trades workers. Apprenticeships and employment in the trades continue to have very low female participation across Canada despite small recent increases and governmental initiatives to encourage women to enter the trades. Given the imbalance in the labour market in trades and the disparity in men’s and women’s incomes, there is an urgent need to expand employment opportunities for women.
Working in a high-wage, traditionally male occupation is one important strategy for increasing economic self-sufficiency for women and improving the standard of living of their families. This is vital for women seeking to leave situations of violence, particularly those seeing to support children alone. However, women in, and seeking to enter, the labour force, especially in non-traditional occupations, face barriers in access to training and work, pay inequity, occupational segregation and gender discrimination. Cultural stereotypes regarding appropriate occupations for women continue to affect employers’ recruiting and promotion practices as well as women’s perceptions of their own opportunities. This inefficient use of women in the workforce wastes human resources, affecting economic growth.
Educational initiatives are key to bringing marginalized people into greater economic and social participation. The compound effects of various intersecting factors such as gender, poverty, racism, violence, and primary responsibility for children, place women at a particular disadvantage, marginalizing their access to social and economic well-being. This premise underpinned the previously funded project in that women who have experienced violence often have difficulty participating successfully in postsecondary education and training. In addition to intersecting social factors, they also experience a broad range of effects of post traumatic stress, including low self esteem and a complex array of responses to stress. To break “cycles of violence” and open a gateway to a different life, education initiatives must address the complex personal histories and consequent barriers experienced by diverse women who have been additionally marginalized by violence.
This study investigates the effectiveness of the George Brown College’s Residential Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Training (RHVACT) for Women, a pre-apprenticeship pilot project funded by the Government of Ontario – Ontario Women’s Directorate. This was a high-support cohort-style project for women who had experienced violence and/or were at high risk. It offered women the opportunity to escape the traps created by violence and poverty by embarking on a career in a skilled trade.
The goal of the study was to identify the components of the project that were effective for these students, particularly those that could be adapted in designing future programs for women who have experienced violence and members of other marginalized groups. The research focused on three overarching questions. Research Question 1: What program supports did the women use and how did they use them? Research Question 2: What are the women’s perceptions of the program’s components? How do they compare with the staff’s perceptions? Research Question 3: Did the women secure and retain related employment?
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