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1.1 Study Background 

Various income security reform initiatives are being pursued throughout Canada at this time. One of the key initiatives in the Northwest Territories is Investing in People, a two-year initiative which is funded and managed jointly by the Government of the Northwest Territories Department of Education, Culture and Employment and Human Resources Development Canada under the Strategic Initiatives Program announced by the federal government in February, 1994.¹

The overall intention of Strategic Initiatives is to support innovative projects directed at reducing dependency on social programs and to gather information upon which to base future social policy and program design decisions.

The barriers to self-sufficiency faced by many social assistance recipients in communities throughout the Northwest Territories (NWT) are many and varied. They include low education and skill levels, conditions of widespread and long-term dependency on social assistance, limited local employment and training opportunities and role models, child care responsibilities, abandonment of traditional pursuits, addictions, and health and personal problems. IIP is directed at meeting the substantial and complex needs of social assistance recipients in the NWT to enhance their potential to become self-sufficient and contribute to the development of their communities.

The projects supported under the IIP initiative fall into two categories: Work Activity Projects, which are employment-focused projects delivered mostly by community-based organizations; and Northern Skills Development Programs delivered by Nunavut Arctic College and Aurora College. NSDP projects are more specifically focused on meeting the educational upgrading needs of participants.²

IIP-Year 2 has supported the delivery of 29 NSDP projects and 30 WAP projects in 35 communities throughout the NWT.³ These projects provided 688 training or work placement positions during the 1995/96 final year of the initiative, extending in some cases into 1996/97. The expenditures relating to the initiative in its second year were approximately $4.8 million with an additional $1.2 million allocated to projects that are still ongoing in the 1996/97 fiscal year. The expenditures in the first year of IIP were approximately $1.3 million.

An evaluation of the IIP initiative was conducted after its first year of operation.⁴ In April 1996, the initiative partners, the GNWT Department of Education, Culture and Employment and Human Resources Development Canada, engaged Nichols Applied Management of Edmonton, in association with the NWT-based The Genesis Group and Nunavut Consulting, to conduct an evaluation of the performance of the initiative's second year of operation and address the following:

• the relevancy of the IIP initiative;
• the adequacy of the design and delivery of the initiative;
• the impact of IIP projects on participants and the communities in which they were delivered; and,
• the cost effectiveness of the IIP initiative.

This report documents the Year 2 evaluation.

The approach taken to this evaluation is described in Section 2 of this report. A more detailed description of the methodology and evaluation instruments used is provided in a Technical Appendix under separate cover.

Section 3 provides background information about IIP, its objectives and intended target group; the context in which it is delivered; its design and the individual projects supported under the initiative.

The evaluation team's findings and conclusions about the IIP initiative are contained in Section 4. Section 5 presents the study team's comments on the lessons that the IIP evaluation may present for future programming and the recommendations flowing from this evaluation are presented in Section 6.

Footnotes

1	This document uses a number of different programs, positions, and agencies that are commonly referred to by their acronym only. Following is a listing of acronyms used throughout the document. Acronym ------------- Agency/Program/Position ABE -------------------- Adult Basic Education CDO ------------------- Career Development Officer CSSW ----------------- Community Social Services Worker CEIC ------------------- Canada Employment and Immigration Commission ECE -------------------- Education, Culture, and Employment FMBS ----------------- Financial Management Board Secretariat GNWT --------------- Government of the Northwest Territories H&SS; ----------------- Health and Social Services HRDC ----------------- Human Resources Development Canada IIP ---------------------- Investing in People NSDP ----------------- Northern Skills Development Project SAR ------------------- Social Assistance Recipient TTP ------------------- Territorial Training Plan WAP ----------------- Work Activity Project
2	Investing in People Handbook, November 1995, page 5.
3	Approval was granted to extend some of the Investing in People projects beyond the scheduled September 30, 1996 finish date.
4	Terriplan Consultants and Martin Spiegelman Research Associates, Paying Dividends: An Evaluation of the Investing in People Program - Year One, November 1995.