About 18 front-line career counsellor positions are being added to the new Careers Nova Scotia system, but potential candidates must have a master’s degree in order to apply.
That’s a change that social activist and retired career counsellor Lynn Jones says is preventing highly qualified African Nova Scotians from working with their communities.
“These people have lived experiences that money can’t buy, you can’t go to school for it and a master’s degree won’t get it. Those lived experiences and connections are what’s been understood to be important for the community,” Jones said.
Jones was hired by the federal government over 30 years ago to work as a specialized employment counsellor in African Nova Scotia communities.
“The federal government hired me as an itinerant service counsellor in the Preston area because they understood all the issues around racism, employment equity, systemic discrimination. They understood those issues and who the support services needed to be offered by,” Jones said.
A new sign along Highway 107, advertising employment services from the new YMCA in the Preston area, is causing heartache for residents of the communities.
For more than 30 years, Watershed Association Development Enterprise, or W.A.D.E, provided employment services to those residents. Now, community members feel their safe haven of resources is being taken away.
“Everybody I’ve talked to over this whole thing in the community is highly outraged because of this. It’s the only services that cater to the African Nova Scotians in the area and the government took it away,” W.A.D.E. board member Brenton Sparks said.
The organization lost its funding to the YMCA during the provincial restructuring of the Careers Nova Scotia program. Employment services went from being a federal responsibility to a provincial responsibility in 2009.
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Since then the labour department says the employment services system ballooned to include more than 50 service providers, creating a “patchwork” of coverage. They also say more than half of their overall funding was going to administration and infrastructure costs.
The department says that funding has been “realigned” through the Careers Nova Scotia make-over.
“We are reducing the administration and infrastructure from 53 per cent to 27 per cent of the $23 million in funding. This will allow us to hire more front-line people to support unemployed Nova Scotians,” Department of Labour spokesperson Andrew Preeper said.
The government says the revamp isn’t about cost-cutting, but some members of the African Nova Scotia community aren’t buying that message.
“When you’ve got people just sitting behind a desk, trying to make decisions based on a community they’ve never stepped foot in, it’s appalling,” Sparks said.
Preeper says the 18 career counsellor positions are new positions, and won’t impact the current staff working in the system.
The more than 100 career practitioners currently working in the system, who currently provide front-line care. The government says its working with others who want to be certified to provide that essential service.
That certification process takes into account “community experience and competencies rather than education levels.”
Preeper also said that any employees working as a career counsellor under the previous model “but may not have performed all the duties or have the qualifications of the new description, will maintain that role at their current salary.”
The week of July 11 kicks off the beginning of the Careers Nova Scotia changes.
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