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In this chapter, we present the findings on preliminary impacts and effects in the areas of labour market skills, action planning, quality of life, and to a lesser extent, employment, earnings and income transfer dependence. These findings are drawn from the survey of third party delivery organizations and employers, discussion groups with participants and stakeholders/delivery agents, and key informant interviews. At this formative stage it is appropriate to focus on short-term impacts such as skills acquisition, but premature to assess longer-term impacts on employment and quality of life outcomes, which will be fully addressed in the subsequent summative evaluation.

4.1 Post Program Employment

(a) Hiring Expectations

Nearly half of the organizations in the survey that provided a work term stated that they plan to hire the Opportunities Fund work placement employee in the future (48 percent).

As illustrated in Exhibit 4.1, the main reason organizations did not plan to hire the work placement employee was a lack of work (31 percent). Nearly 20 percent stated there were barriers related to the disability and another 18 percent stated the individual was not interested. Few organizations identified dissatisfaction with the worker as the reason for not hiring (12 percent) and only 11 percent indicated the budget was too low.

(b) Employment and Job Characteristics

Of the sponsoring organizations that stated that they intend to hire the work placement employee, 61 percent indicated that this would be a full-time job, while 36 percent stated the job would be part- time.

4.2 Employer Impacts

(a) Employer Benefits

The most frequently cited benefit for organizations providing work placements was a skilled employee (49 percent), followed closely by increasing awareness of disability issues (38 percent) (see Exhibit 4.2). Contrary to what might be expected, private sector firms were less likely to cite obtaining a skilled employee as a benefit than NGOs who provided a work placement under OF (though this difference is not statistically significant). These NGOs were more likely to identify raising awareness of training or human resource issues as a benefit (31 percent) than private sector organizations (11 percent). Modifications to the workplace were claimed as a benefit only by the NGOs providing a work placement, though only 13 percent of these organizations reported this benefit.

Approximately 17 percent of the organizations reported lower labour costs (wage subsidies) as a benefit. Although there was a significant difference in the percentage of private sector organizations and employers from the non-governmental sector who provided a work placement citing the wage subsidy as the main reason for participation, there is no significant difference in the percentage reporting this as a benefit.

4.3 Participant Impacts

In the discussion group discussions, participants in OF-funded projects identified a variety of preliminary beneficial impacts — impacts related to their job skills and employment prospects/outcomes, as well as to the quality of their lives. Key impacts include the following:

• improved self-esteem and self-confidence, as well as increased motivation and a more positive outlook on life in general (e.g., programs provide a reason to "get out of bed in the morning" and people are hopeful that they can become productive members of society);
• better quality of life because of higher income and rewarding work activity;
• setting of goals — enabling one to "dream again" — and preparation of a "return to work" action plan;
• improved job readiness skills, life skills and job search skills;
• improved knowledge and skills related to employment in a range of fields (e.g., information/computer technology, data entry, word processing, work in a call centre, sociology, television/film production, home- based business skills);
• job experience (through internships, work placements, wage subsidies or volunteer work) and good job prospects at the completion of training programs;
• actual employment for graduates of training programs (e.g., work in a call centre) and for people receiving workplace accommodations and related support (e.g., financial assistance for work-related transportation, equipment and assistive devices); and
• reduced dependency on government social assistance.

Stakeholders, delivery agents and HRDC/HRCC officials consulted in key informant interviews and discussion groups observed preliminary impacts similar to those listed above. It remains to be seen, however, if these positive indications at this early stage of the Opportunities Fund will translate into enduring employment for participants.

4.4 Incrementality

One measure of incrementality of OF is whether the projects funded under the program were new or were based on existing projects. As noted earlier, just over one-third of the projects were based on existing programs. This is just one measure of the incrementality of the funded project, however. For example, the funded project may be based on an existing program but the funding may have been used to extend the project to a new clientele, to provide new services within an existing program framework or to extend the timeframe for the existing program.

When asked directly in the survey, the overwhelming response was that the project funding was incremental. Nearly three-quarters of the respondents indicated very strongly that the project would not have proceeded without the OF funding, whereas only 12 percent indicated any strong likelihood that the project would have taken place without the funding.