Whose job is it?

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

Putting people to work is important and valuable, but municipalities shouldn’t be paying for it.

Berwick Councillor Mike Trinacty spoke after Vickie Petrie, manager of the Annapolis Valley Work Activity Centre in Kentville (PeopleWorx), ask council to consider financial support of its programs.

“I’m familiar with the work done there,” Trinacty said, “and it makes me wonder if the provincial and federal governments don’t get embarrassed - they underfund these programs, and they are their responsibility.”

he compared the employment counselling centre to paratransit services and schools.

“It reduces groups to coming to the ‘poor cousins’ for grants.”

Trinacty said that’s going to be harder for councils to do, particularly as the provincial plan to cap property assessments kicks in on the next tax municipal billing.

“It should cause them a twinge, when it’s so clearly a service they should be supporting.”

Petrie said provincial funding for PeopleWorx has been frozen since 2002, but was frozen for nine years even before that change.

“Any little bit” Berwick could find in its funds, she said, would help PeopleWorx throughout Valley centres continue 20 years of training, resume writing sessions, educational upgrading, professional and personal skill development and employer workshops.

“We have an 87 per cent rate in getting employment because we work so well with our work placement matches,” Petrie said.

The Kentville centre alone supports 100 people a year; Petrie said 140 come, but the waiting list is long.

“We had 96 people in 2006 from Berwick through our (range of) programs - a very active part of what we serve.”

Getting people past barriers to employment is the centre’s primary function, but it stepped in this winter as 400 Canard poultry plant works lost their jobs. Half now have employment. PeopleWorx has also targeted employers having trouble keeping staff - from taking other job offers, answering the call of Western Canada and even choosing a different lifestyle.

“Younger people today don’t want to work the nine-to-five we did, they want to work late into the night on their computers, or on their own terms,” Petrie said. “We’re helping employers work with their people to keep those people with them, and in the Valley.”

Beyond employment stats, Petrie said, the satisfaction centre staff and clients gain at the end of each session proves PeopleWorx is valuable.

“We see people - one girl from the Berwick area, the first four weeks, she was just so shy - her hair over her eyes and not speaking. By the end, her hair was in a ponytail, she was wearing make-up and was holding her head high, realizing her potential. Success is measured in all different ways.”

Councillor Anna Ashford Morton said she was also familiar with PeopleWorx, and suggested council write to the minister of community services