In advance of the scheduled October 19, 2024, provincial election, we wanted to quantify our members' advocacy through our recent members’ advocacy survey and provide tools to augment your individual advocacy work.
 
Advocacy Survey  

Although the response was not as high as we hoped, we did receive some clear data.
 
Seventy-five percent of respondents are engaged in advocacy, primarily through educational efforts aimed at employers, community members, and stakeholders. All participants advocate to enhance services for clients and are motivated by a commitment to their causes. The predominant challenge cited by 60% is limited funding. Additionally, between 70% to 85% of respondents believe that the public lacks an understanding of the significant role played by the community-based employment services sector in British Columbia, which includes addressing labour shortages, removing barriers for newcomers, and tackling issues in rural and remote areas.
 
Advocacy Toolkit

 
I am delighted to announce the release of our new advocacy toolkit that provides you with information about what advocacy means to us, along with key messages addressing topics such as diversity, pay equity, rural and remote, youth, education and training, international credential recognition, job transitions, worker shortages, and housing and transportation.
 

Member Data Update

Starting next month, we will contact all member organizations to update our database and collect data about the size and impact of our sector in BC. This will help ASPECT and you have important statistics needed to describe the impact our sector makes upon others.
 
Community Reporters Program
 
Last week, we launched the pilot of our community reporter program, where we conduct interviews with our members and those working within the career development ecosystem to talk about their work and what makes it unique and impactful. Short videos are being produced to share across all social media and web platforms with the #humansofemployment hashtag to be easily accessible to show others the work you do. At right is a photo of Isabelle Bennett interviewing Aidan Schweinbenz at the John Howard Society of Victoria. The program will see ASPECT hiring youth throughout the province to create content and build their personal content creation portfolios for future work. The first videos are in the editing stage now, but I want to thank our members in Victoria and Nanaimo who made time for this pilot.
 
These tools and activities will help us spread the word about the good work you do, and I would like to acknowledge our communications manager, Pamela Daoust, and communications assistant, Isabelle Bennett, for your hard work in putting everything together. I hope you’ll agree that the data collected with the advocacy supports provided can make a significant difference in educating all for the upcoming election and beyond.
 

Janet Morris-Reade, CEO
ASPECT BC