Employment Services

The Employment Services team aims to cultivate the human spirit by creating the context for the people we serve to express their skills and talents in the workplace. 

Employment Services originated in 1991, around the time that the Kenora Association for Community Living closed its sheltered workshop, ARC Industries.  This action was aligned with a broader social justice initiative, known as the Community Living Movement, whose main goal was the repatriation of people back into their home communities, from large residential institutions, further challenging the appropriateness and the basic assumptions that contributed to the creation of sheltered workshops, and other segregated vocational training settings. 

The Employment team believes that health, wholeness, and vitality of any community requires the participation of each member as well as the contribution of their gifts. They consider the core purpose of our work is to see beyond barriers and enter the more expansive field of individuals potential in the work force, and to the reduction of social exclusion and poverty.  

Each team member spends time with individuals to explore their talents and interests, to listen to their dreams, and to discover the type of employment that best reflects them.  People are supported in getting the jobs they want through training and education, through assistance in searching for employment opportunities, and through entrepreneurial partnerships with employers that develop innovative possibilities within existing business environments.  Employment Services assist people to maintain employment through ongoing support to navigate workplace culture and relationships.  People are encouraged to broaden their skills, to continue to learn in the workplace, and to increase the scope of their employment opportunities.