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Background

The jobLink initiative was established in Ontario in 1994 to provide funding to resource centres (RCs) to improve the access to employment services and support for social assistance recipients (SARs) ultimately leading to self-sufficiency. Funding in 1994-95 for the initial sites was jointly shared by the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services (MCSS) and the federal government under the Strategic Initiatives program of Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC). In-kind contributions were provided by local municipalities. The jobLink program was terminated in 1995, though resource centres continued to operate at the former jobLink sites.

Research Issues

The purpose of this study was to conduct a process and summative evaluation of integrated resource centre delivery sites, which were initially established through jobLink. Communities that were selected to participate in the evaluation included Toronto, Sudbury, Windsor and Ottawa. This evaluation builds on a process evaluation of the Windsor and Sudbury sites conducted in 1996. The issues, which formed the basis of this evaluation, were:

• client impacts, specifically the labour market and non-labour market outcomes of participation in resource centres;

• cost-effectiveness/efficiency of resource centres;

• partnerships, including lessons learned on building partnerships;

• community impacts such as improving access to services, reducing duplication and enhancing community capacity; and

• case management, referring to issues such as client selection, utilization of services and monitoring.

Methodology

There were five major components in the methodological approach for this evaluation:

1. Document/literature review. Including prior evaluation work and local RC documentation.

2. Surveys of RC clients. A telephone survey of 493 RC clients was conducted and distributed roughly evenly across the four sites — Toronto, Sudbury, Windsor and Ottawa.

3. Survey of non-RC clients. In total, 400 telephone interviews were completed with non-RC clients. This comparison group was drawn from the General Welfare Assistance (GWA) caseload, selected to be comparable with RC participants in terms of sex, age and year started receiving social assistance. The comparison group was also screened to ensure that they were receiving social assistance during a period comparable with RC clients. The comparison population group data were weighted to the participant population in terms of age, number of dependants, education and pre-program employment status.

4. On-site visit. An on-site visit, including key informant interviews, documentation review and a focus group with clients, was conducted at the Ottawa site to provide a more detailed examination of the operation and community environment at this location.

5. Administrative data analysis. Two sources of administrative data were examined for this evaluation: basic program/RC administrative data and General Welfare Assistance data. Linkages to HRDC data files, particularly the Status Vector and TI files were also established.

A series of caveats should be noted. First, the evaluation findings are representative of the four sites examined, not the jobLink initiative overall. Second, some sites provided sampling frames that included volunteer participants. Third, due to delays in processing the comparison group file, the survey of participants and the survey of the comparison group were conducted several months apart. Finally, despite our attempts to construct a comparable group of non-participants through sample selection, screening and then weighting, there were some remaining differences between the two groups.

Client Profile

jobLink resource centres were initially established to provide services targeted to social assistance recipients. While SARs remain the primary client group for resource centres, many services are open to all community residents who are unemployed and seeking work. The client profile of resource centres depends to some extent on the location of the centre, with off-site centres drawing a broader mix of clientele.

The profile of current jobLink clients presented in the report confirms a need for employment assistance. Clients generally have sporadic experience in the labour market and high reliance on income transfers, leading to poor prospects for obtaining employment for these workers.

Key Findings

Client Impacts

Resource centres appear to have met their objectives in terms of increasing access to services. The utilization of employment services among jobLink clients was high (significantly higher than the comparison group), with almost all clients having accessed self-serve products and two-thirds receiving staff-assisted services. Employment services available largely reflect clients' original expectations and satisfaction ratings for services were generally high. Information about the services available to them and follow-up were rated less positively.

While virtually all clients surveyed could be classified as in the labour force (either employed or interested in obtaining employment and had actively searched for work), the employment rate for the jobLink resource centre clients was relatively low (only one in four were employed full-time). While jobLink participants initially showed more positive labour market outcomes than the comparison group, these differences largely disappeared when the multivariate analysis controlled for pre-existing differences between the two groups. Sociodemographic variables such as sex, age and marital status were more important predictors of employment status. The greater likelihood that the jobLink clients were in the labour market (i.e., actively looking for work) was also an important factor. The multivariate analysis, however, did show a significant and positive advantage for the participant group in terms of number of weeks employed during the post-program period. As well, the jobs that were found by jobLink clients were more likely to be year-round, full-time and higher paying.

The current financial situation of clients and the comparison group is generally poor. Average household incomes are well below the average in Canada and the majority of respondents reported that they had difficulty in living on their current income. Utilization of public support, particularly social assistance, is quite high among both the client and comparison groups. The majority of clients and comparison group respondents also expressed dissatisfaction with their current level of financial security.

Cost-Efficiency/Effectiveness

There is a lack of evidence collected in this evaluation to make a definitive judgement on the cost-efficiency or effectiveness of jobLink resource centres. According to process evaluation information and the data collected in this evaluation, cost of service varies considerably depending of the types of services provided, the way client volumes are calculated and the proportion of clients receiving self-directed versus staff-assisted services. The cost per client served for Windsor was $199, for Ottawa $74, and for Sudbury Central the cost was $12. No cost figures were available for the Toronto site. An overall average based on these figures is $95.

Cost-effectiveness of resource centres was also expected to be achieved in the longer term as social assistance recipients are helped in finding jobs and attaining self-sufficiency. Sustainable employment leads to reduced costs for public support such as employment insurance and social assistance. According to the survey data, the success rate for jobLink clients — measured in terms of the proportion who are currently employed — is 38 %. Based on the efficiency ratios noted above, we could extrapolate to calculate a cost per employed client of about $585.

Partnerships

Local municipalities, MCSS and HRDC are key partners in most of the resource centres examined in the evaluation. Roles and responsibilities of government partners include providing funding, day-to-day administration of the resource centre (usually the municipal level) and providing linked services (e.g., HRDC literature and job bank listings are made available to the resource centre, specialized expertise may be provided on a case-by-base basis by other partners). In addition to government partners, most resource centres have sought partnerships with community-based organizations. Less work has been conducted on developing partnerships with industry in terms of leveraging contributions or on developing employment placements/opportunities for clients.

Community Impacts

Key informants generally believed that jobLink resource centres had enhanced services by providing walk-in access to employment services that had not been available before. The evidence from the survey of clients indicates that the resource centre was the primary source of assistance for most clients — only one in five accessed other types of services or assistance that did not involve the resource centre. Marketing, however, is an issue that was raised in several sites with respect to building infrastructure. New resource centres, particularly those that do not operate as a storefront or are located "off-site" — i.e., located in a social assistance office or co-located with an established agency — must build a clientele. This requires promotion and strong links with referral sources.

In terms of integration of services, the collocation of organizations has been only moderately successful. Community-based organizations sometimes resist collocation arrangements out of fear of losing funding. Integration of services is often accomplished through staffing arrangements, which involve staff from partner organizations providing services on-site at the resource centre on a regular basis. Key factors for successful collocation include clear articulation of roles and responsibilities of partners and communication within the office with respect to procedures and goals and objectives.

Key informants agreed that there are significant benefits to service integration for clients. Collocation arrangements allow clients to access a variety of services at one site. This increases the likelihood that clients will utilize the various employment services and also decreases the cost and inconvenience for clients. Collocation can also have benefits for staff in terms of informal training and professional development among the representatives from different agencies.

The elimination of duplication is probably the least clear among the community impacts of resource centres. Resource centres did not conduct a great deal of needs analysis research prior to implementation and so some communities did not have a clear understanding of gaps in services or extent of duplication. Key informants, however, generally believed that recent reductions in government funding for employment services, as well as funding cuts among Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) meant that gaps in services were more likely to be a problem than duplication.

The sustainability of resource centres in the longer term with the termination in funding, however, is unclear. While the focus of Ontario Works on increasing self-sufficiency would seem to fit with resource centre objectives and activities, funding of activities is an ongoing issue.

Case Management

While the focus of resource centre activities is on social assistance recipients, most centres can and will provide assistance to other groups as well, such as employment insurance recipients and other unemployed individuals (e.g., youth). The resource centres examined in this evaluation provide a wide variety of self-serve and staff-assisted products and services to clients.

Monitoring and tracking of resource centre clients is usually conducted using customized databases or, in some smaller centres, manually. All resource centres have a registration form upon which the client record is based (this may be limited to staff-assisted clients only). Resource centres also collect information on client employment activities, though this is largely limited to staff-assisted services such as participation in workshops, referrals and so on. Use of self-serve products is not rigorously tracked by the resource centres. As well, while resource centres generally produce monthly statistics and quarterly reports on throughput indicators such as service utilization and client volume, there is less emphasis on tracking outcomes related to employability. Some centres conduct periodic surveys of clients to assess satisfaction and need for improvement.

Conclusions

In sum, resource centres provide employment services to clients who are in need of assistance to improve their job prospects. The survey data clearly indicate that the jobLink group had far greater access to employment services and programs than the comparison group. While some of the benefits of resource centres appear quite modest, this must be interpreted in light of the challenging profile of the target client group. The survey results indicate that while the jobLink client group showed a significant employment advantage compared with the comparison group, this was due to pre-existing differences between the two groups. There are, however, positive benefits attributable to the program in terms of length of unemployment and type of employment found in the post-program period.

In terms of the operation of the resource centres themselves, jobLink has led to the development of partnerships, greater integration of services and enhanced community capacity. However, funding issues, difficulties in effectively managing partnerships and efficient monitoring have posed barriers for some centres and led to weaknesses in delivery. As well, the movement away from a case management approach to a more self-serve model in some centres will have an impact on the centres' ability to assist the full range of their clients' needs. Greater communication, both within offices and with clients, as well as continued community development were identified as key elements for future success.

Recommendations

1. Collocation

The jobLink initiative was intended to involve various levels of government and non-government organizations to provide integrated services to social assistance recipients. While physical collocation was not achieved in many of the sites included in this evaluation, the collocation of organizations is reported to lead to numerous benefits.¹ Collocation offers many advantages both to organizations (e.g., increased efficiency, staff collaboration and sharing) and to clients (e.g., expanded availability of services, "one-stop" access to programs). The use of various self-serve products and referrals by participants interviewed for this evaluation suggests that clients themselves desire access to the broadest possible services offered by adjacent organizations. Future initiatives that aim at developing the employment resource centre model should give careful consideration to collocated arrangements among governments (federal, provincial, municipal employment services) and community partners. The collocation may involve varying levels of integration from itinerant collocation of staff to greater integration and sharing of resources and management/administration.

2. Service Provision

The evidence gathered in this evaluation suggests that jobLink participants were very satisfied with the self-directed and staff-assisted services they received. While the move to greater self-directed services was viewed as positive and provides expanded access to employment support services, it should also be noted that many participants did not appear to be adequately equipped to make use of some of these services on their own. For participants, the most significant gap in programming was information on the types of services that were available at the resource centre and initial orientation/support on how to best make use of the services. The case management approach, whether conducted by the resource centre itself or a third party organization, should consider a process for assessing clients' needs/skills prior to referral to an employment resource centre. As well, future efforts in providing self-directed services to unemployed clients should include orientation sessions and access to staff support in the employment resource centre itself. This implies a need for a highly trained staff who are familiar with the resources available, highly computer literate and have strong case management/counselling skills.

3. Local Advisory Committees

Several of the sites that were included in this jobLink evaluation had difficulty in establishing local or community advisory committees. However, in areas where local advisory committees were functioning, the committees proved to be very important in the success of the site by broadening ownership of the initiative and pooling expertise. Committees, composed of community representatives, are also important in examining areas of service needs and duplication to create a more seamless infrastructure. Finally, involvement of community partners ensures that clients receive appropriate referrals when necessary. In future initiatives, the importance of and capacity necessary for establishing successful partnerships should be explicitly recognized. This includes for example, recognition of the human resources necessary to maintain partnerships, development of the particular skill sets (e.g., negotiation) and early involvement of the appropriate partners in the community.

4. Role of Industry

The role of industry was quite limited in all of the sites included in this evaluation. Yet, involvement of local business would present opportunities for leveraging of contributions and development of employment opportunities for clients. Dedicated positions for job developers were not consistent across the sites. It might be useful to harmonize the job development efforts of resource centres with those of other organizations that are also approaching employers to establish links for future client employment (e.g., local schools and colleges looking for co-op placements).

5. Data Collection

As indicated in the description of the methodological approach for this evaluation, the conduct of this study was hampered to some extent by lack of access and availability of program and participant-level data. The formative evaluation of jobLink noted that there were significant vagaries in the data collected by various jobLink sites (e.g., caseloads, financial information). This presents barriers in examining outcome measures across sites (e.7g., cost per client served). Follow-up procedures should also receive increased attention in the planning of employment services and sufficient resources allocated to this activity. Finally, the current evaluation encountered difficulties in assembling a satisfactory sampling frame for the survey of jobLink participants due to confidentiality concerns on the part of the sites. In future initiatives of this nature, it would be useful to secure permission for release of information from clients at the time of the intervention to permit evaluation research in the future.

Footnotes

1	See, for example, KPMG Project Report, CASC Process Review — Moving Towards an Integrated Service Delivery System, Edmonton, Alberta, 1997.