Partners for Prosperity Conference

The demands of the labour market are changing faster than ever before, and the challenge of finding the right people, and preparing them to meet those demands lies ahead for us all.

Partners for Prosperity, hosted jointly by the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association, the Learning Enrichment Foundation, and Lasso Communications, lays out an exciting roadmap for marrying corporate and community interests to build alliances which develop community economies and resources and create family sustaining jobs.

FIVE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD ATTEND

1. Strategize with Canada's leading players in labour force and economic development

2. Learn from the most innovative initiatives from across the country

3. Understand how to seek out and build cross-sectional alliances for the benefit of communities

4. Discover how corporate community partners have made their collaborative efforts work

5. Determine how to identify employment and training opportunities in your community

This exceptional conference assembles an exciting group of speakers and includes representatives from leading-edge community and private sector organizations from across the country. You'll hear from the organizations that have made the vital link between labour market needs, customized/targeted training, and sustainable labour market integration.

THIS EXCEPTIONAL AGENDA WILL SHOW YOU:

• How to identify opportunities for sustainable employment

• Practical approaches to delivering customized training to facilitate labour market entry

• Strategies for preparing people for employment, and supporting them through the integration process

• How and when to build mutually beneficial alliances

• How corporations that have acknowledged the third sector as a business opportunity have leveraged this knowledge

• Success stories of Ontario Works clients who have made the transition back to work

This outstanding national event could be your only chance to meet with key players in this dynamic, growing field. Please review the attached agenda. It assembles an exceptional faculty and includes three streams of roll-up-your-sleeves practical workshops that you won't want to miss.

We look forward to meeting you in September.

Yours truly,
Pauline Carter, Executive Director, Ontario Municipal Social Services Association
Eunice Grayson, Executive Director, Learning Enrichment Foundation
Rob Sandler, General Manager, Advanced Career Technologies Group, Lasso Communications
For more information, call (905) 629-3115 x 241

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PARTNERS FOR PROSPERITY

Creating Community Wealth
International Plaza Hotel and Conference Centre
September 29 to October 1, 1999

Wednesday, September 29, 1999

7:15 PM Welcome from the Co-Chairs
Garry Loewen, Community Economic Development Director, Mennonite Central Committee
Elizebeth Moyer, Skills 2000 Program Manager,Microsoft Canada
Alfred Spencer, Director, Employment and Income Support, Region of Hamilton-Wentworth

7:30 PM Opening Roundtable
Enlightened Self-Interest

Moderator and Lead-Off Speaker: Charles Pascal, Executive Director, The Atkinson Foundation
Joan Andrew, Assistant Deputy Minister, Ontario Ministry of Education and Training
Rankin McSween, President, New Dawn Enterprises, Sydney, Nova Scotia Dan Patterson, President, Niagara College

If I am not for me, who will be? · If I am only for me, what will I be? · If not now, when?

9:00 PM Networking and Getting Acquainted

Thursday, September 30, 1999

BUILDING NEW ALLIANCES: KEY PLAYERS, AND KEY PERSPECTIVES

8:30 AM Welcome and Opening Remarks from the Co-Chairs
Lead-Off: Garry Loewen, Community Economic Development Director, Mennonite Central Committee

8:45 AM Keynote from HRDC - Fostering Community Development
Hear HRDC's view on the role of cross-sectoral partnering and community capacity building. Hear directly from the Minister about HRDC initiatives to foster regional economic development and community wealth.
Hon. Pierre Pettigrew, Minister, Human Resources Development Canada (invited)

9:30 AM Investing in Communities, A Leading-Edge Corporate Perspective
John Hay, Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Molson Breweries, Ontario-Atlantic Region

10:30 AM BREAK

THEORY, TO TRAINING, TO JOBS

11:00 AM Targeted Customized Training, Labour Market Reintegration, and Tools for Evaluation

Customized training is a powerful tool for labour market reintegration. You'll hear about initiatives to combat unemployment and to successfully match clients, with skills, with jobs. You'll hear about cutting-edge cross-sectoral initiatives that target training to regional needs and provide sustainable, meaningful employment.
Sherri Torjman, Vice-President, Caledon Institute of Social Policy

• Customized or tailor-made training as a tool
• Facilitating labour market entry and/or re-entry
• Identifying employment opportunities
• Strategies for linking with employers

12:15 PM SPECIAL LUNCHEON ADDRESS
Forging Successful Partnerships
Opportunities 2000 and The Royal Bank
Paul Born, Consulting Director, Opportunities 2000 Jim Gordon, Vice President, Business Banking, Kitchener Waterloo Cambridge, Royal Bank

2:00-3:15 PM CONCURRENT SESSIONS - TRAINING SUCCESS STORIES
You'll hear about programs from across the province that have made the vital link between labour market research, customized/targeted training, and sustainable labour market reintegration and how each unique program has worked successfully with local employers.

Session 1A
LutherwoodCODA Opportunities 2000: A Multi-Sector Approach to Poverty Reduction in the Waterloo Region
Opportunities 2000 is an exceptionally innovative program sponsored by LutherwoodCODA to combat poverty in the Waterloo Region. Its mandate is to create awareness, cultivate community development and promote employment and income opportunities while fostering broadly based alliances with business and government. Paul Born, Consulting Director, Opportunities 2000

• Project goals
• Project partners
• Assisting local organizations to develop projects to create new income and employment opportunities
• Becoming a catalyst in the community
• Creating community leadership; building community consensus

Session 1B
Region of Sudbury - Ontario Works Economic Development in a Knowledge-Based Industry A Case Study
In response to a changing economy and labour force shifts, Ontario Works - Sudbury has become an innovative part of the community's economic development team.
Lee Healey, Placement Coordinator, & Deborah Tincombe, Acting Policy Analyst, Region of Sudbury

• Forming community partnerships
• Omega Direct Call Centre
• Human resource support
• Preparing the workforce

Session 1C
Mennonite Central Committee
Opportunities for Employment Training Program: An Entrepreneurial Approach to Supporting the Transition from Welfare to Work Opportunities for Employment (OFE) is a Winnipeg organization which has used an entrepreneurial approach to enable rapid response to changing worker and employer needs.
Garry Loewen, Community Economic, Development Director, Mennonite Central Committee

• Program partners
• Challenges and opportunities of a results-based contract
• The welfare to work process
• Customized training programs
• Future directions - Moving from a program to a community orientation

Session 1D
Goodwill Toronto - Building Bridges to Opportunity
Sharon Myat of Goodwill Toronto will present three innovative and award-winning programs based on partnership model involving private sector leadership, the community sector and the call centre industry. Hear how these programs have led to employee sustainability, loyalty and bottom line results for 'at risk' youth and persons with disabilities.
Rae Thompson, Vice President, Work Training and Employment Services, Goodwill Toronto

• Coaching, mentoring, reward and incentives
• Moving from the rehab model to the corporate model
• Screening tied to market-driven outcomes
• 95 percent success factor
• Sharing and exploring the model across Canada and the U.S.
• Unfolding national initiatives

3:15 PM Special Tour of LEF Facilities and Programs

4:15-5:30 PM CONCURRENT SESSIONS - ALLIANCES AT WORK
Hear from leading-edge corporations which recognize the third sector as a vital source for business, for partnering, and for talent.

Session 2A
Lasso Communications - A Leading-Edge Technology Solution
Jon de la Mothe of Lasso Communications will describe how a training and community-based enterprise can leverage its core services through technology-based systems and then extend and market those services to best target customers. Using The Learning Enrichment Foundation (LEF) as a model, the session will explore the following:
Jon de la Mothe, Senior Business Development Manager, Lasso Communications

• Program Development: Using CD-ROM and web-based courseware to cost and time-
• effectively supplement instructor-led programs
• Career Pathing: Using the Life Learning System
• Allowing the learner to access your organization's training resources or services
• Brand building and advertising
• Leveraging an organization's services through brand building, grassroots advertising, and outreach
• programs, all to increase traffic

Session 2B
Canada Trust and the Region of Ottawa-Carleton Partnership Initiative - A Strategic Public/Private Partnership Addressing Workforce Development
The initiative embodies a genuine synergy between new goals in client service for the Region, including a substantial commitment to creating employment opportunities, and the needs and interests of a private sector partner.
Donna Gray, Project Manager, Social Services, Region of Ottawa-Carleton & Liane Swanlund, Regional Manager, Human Resources, Eastern Canada, Canada Trust

• Genesis of the initiative
• Assessing and assigning resources
• Committing to develop a tailored orientation, training and recruitment process
• Developing a partnership model
• Canada Trust's aims
• Screening and training for customer service positions
• Benchmarking program outcomes

Session 2C
KPMG - The Underground Economy; Policy, Ethics and Joint Action
This session will begin by examining the implications of the underground economy - a poorly understood and serious social and economic problem that relies upon insecure, underpaid jobs, hampers job creation and undermines community wealth. Awareness of these implications and an understanding of the factors that foster its growth, (including the unintended consequences of some social policy decisions) are preconditions of joint action.
Barry Lewis, Vice President, Human Services & William Empey, Vice President, Economics, KPMG

• Factors contributing to the growth of the underground economy
• Negative impact on the underemployed, businesses, communities
• Motivators to addressing the problem
• Joint action by governments, service organizations and business

Session 2D
Microsoft Canada Skills 2000 - A Cutting-Edge solution for Bridging the IT Skills Gap
According to the Information Technology Association of Canada, there will be over 30,000 new IT jobs created in Canada in the next two years. Microsoft Canada has created this strategic program to ensure that Canadians are trained and ready to fill them.
Elizebeth Moyer, Skills 2000 Program, Manager, Microsoft Canada

• Implications of the broadening skill gap in the
• IT field
• Microsoft's corporate commitment to training, and preparing Canadians for new jobs
• Goals of the Skills 2000 program
• Implementation and training delivery
• Student support, job-search, and training follow-up
• Moving forward: benchmarking results

5:30-6:30 Reception and entertainment provided by Learning Enrichment Foundation

Friday, October 1, 1999

8:00-8:45 AM Sunrise Session (optional)
Special Presentation: Welfare to Work as an Integrated Community Economic Development Strategy - A Provocative Study: LEF Integrated Ontario Works Demonstration Project Results

Learn how LEF operates an integrated model of service delivery that guarantees success. What kind of government partnership is required to make that commitment? What are the results of the pilot project, and how do we move beyond to being able to serve a significant segment of our community?
Eunice Grayson, Executive Director, LEF, and LEF Presentation Team

9:00 AM Welcome and Opening Remarks from the Co-Chairs
Lead-Off: Alfred Spencer, Director, Employment & Income Support, Region of Hamilton-Wentworth

KEY PRACTICAL INFORMATION

9:20 AM Leading the Way on Urban Economic Development You'll hear from John Kelly, CEO of JetForm, about the Partners For Jobs Task Force, an initiative spearheaded by the Region of Ottawa-Carleton to develop a multi-sectoral labour force development strategy for the region. You'll also hear from the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism about its commitment to fostering economic development.
Ian Bromley, Special Advisor to the ADM, Urban Economic Development Office, Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism
John Kelly, CEO, JetForm Corp.

• Creation of the Task Force in Ottawa-Carleton
• Creating an employment strategy
• Responding to local labour market needs

10:00 AM Networking Break

11:00 AM CONCURRENT SESSIONS - PRACTICAL LESSONS Session 3A
Negotiating the Deal - A Tactical Legal Primer Weir & Foulds
Strategic alliances and cross-sectoral initiatives can often involve legal issues which must be identified and addressed. This session will be a primer which highlights problems and offers solutions.
John Wilkinson, Partner, Weir & Foulds

• Common legal problems and how to approach them
• Public/private arrangements
• Cross-sectoral arrangements
• Revenue Canada's discussion paper on charities and community economic development

Session 3B
Client-Centred Integrated Program Delivery - Region of Hamilton-Wentworth
In today's economy, local government must be as effective, efficient and innovative as any for profit business. Hamilton-Wentworth has integrated its social and health services to maximize the outcomes of existing programs. With a clear emphasis on the citizens and groups entitled to social and health services and by focusing on their needs, the newly integrated "Social and Public Health Services Division" will deliver programs that support independence and wellness.
Alfred Spencer, Director, Employment and Income Support, Region of Hamilton-Wentworth

• Principles of integration
• Levels of integration
• Lessons learned
• Early wins for Partners

Session 3C
Strategic Alliances - What Does it Take to Create a Great Alliance? Alliances are instruments for survival, growth, and extending skills and services. More organizations are turning to alliances to pursue opportunities and innovation. Creating successful alliances has become a core competency.
Ruth Armstrong, Management Consultant, Vision Management Services & Adjunct Faculty,Schulich School of Business, York University

• Understanding the environment, trends and models
• Identifying the appropriate alliance framework
• Searching for and finding the right alliances
• Negotiating the agreement
• Creating successful alliances and avoiding pitfalls

Session 3D
SMART Toronto - Supporting Innovation Through Collaboration and Advocacy
SMART Toronto is the Greater Toronto Area's leading business association for the technology and new media sectors. It is a collaborative, non-profit, member-based association whose mandate is to build Toronto as a centre for digitally enabled creation and distribution. SMART Toronto brings private and public sector interests together to create significant economic, social and cultural benefits.
Mark Deacon, President, SMART Toronto

• How SMART Toronto has facilitated community-wide collaborative efforts
• Encouraging cooperative alliances and solutions
• Identifying and reaching key industry sectors
• Working toward economic and infrastructure development goals

12:15 PM LUNCHEON
Honorary Luncheon Speaker: Bob Tuttel, Director of Education, Microsoft Canada

1:45 PM Lessons from Revelstoke to Sydney
How to Foster Entrepreneurial Spirit and Build Community Economies
Hear about two of the most successful and exciting community economic development initiatives in Canada and learn what it takes to foster entrepreneurial energy at the community level. You'll also be provided with an introduction to the Canadian CED Network, and its efforts to link CED initiatives.
Rankin McSween, President, New Dawn Enterprises, Sydney, Nova Scotia Doug Weir, Economic Development Commissioner, Revelstoke Economic Development Commission, Revelstoke, B.C.

• Restructuring of local economies and employment
• Entrepreneurial communities
• Building organizational capacity
• Access to natural resources
• Partnership building
• Introduction to the Canadian CED Network
• Increasing the network's capacity to develop and deliver best practices
• Advocacy and policy development

3:15 - 4:00 PM Closing Remarks and draw for complete computer system donated by Millenium Electronics Inc.

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5 EASY WAYS TO REGISTER:
This form should be completed and returned with your payment to:

MAIL: Ontario Municipal Social Services Association, 5720 Timberlea Blvd., Unit 100, Mississauga ON L4W 4W2
PHONE: (905) 629-3115
FAX: (905) 629-1633
E-MAIL:omssa@netcom.ca
WEB: www.lefca.com/partners_for_prosperity

REGISTRATION FEE includes original course materials, luncheon and networking breaks. Please make cheques payable to OMSSA and write the registrant's name on the face of the cheque.

GROUP RATES Special rates are available for groups of five or more delegates. Please call (905) 629-3115 ext. 241 for more information.

CONFERENCE SITEThe conference will be held at the International Plaza Hotel and Conference Centre on September 29 to October 1, 1999. The hotel is conveniently located near Pearson International Airport at 655 Dixon Road. (near Martingrove Road). To make room reservations, please contact the International Plaza Hotel at (416) 244-1711 or toll-free at 1-800-668-3656. The room rate for Partners for Prosperity delegates, single or double occupancy, is $105 per night. Please be sure to ask for the Partners for Prosperity/OMSSA delegate rate when making reservations.

CANCELLATIONS received in writing prior to September 17, 1999 will be given a full refund less a $150 administration fee. Substitution of participants is permitted without notification. Due to administrative costs of the conference, no refunds will be given for cancellations received after September 17, 1999. Once you are registered, you agree to full payment of the full registration fees, regardless of attendance at your session, unless you cancel before the date specified above. The conference planners will make every effort to present the program as advertised, but it may be necessary to change the date, location, speakers or content with little or no notice. The conference planners assume no liability for such changes.