The ACTEW Blog

To provide a report on the October meeting of the Service Delivery Advisory Group (SDAG), ACTEW hosted a members meeting on October 19. The conference call format allowed agencies from across the province to participate equally. Service providers from various regions represented 15 agencies currently funded by Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities (MTCU).

While all of the information in the SDAG update was valuable to the members, several topics were of great interest.

• Because many ACTEW members provide services especially for women, understanding MTCU's position on funding specialized services is of utmost importance.
  
  
• Members described the many different pieces of information they have heard about the transition and which agencies would be included in the new network.
  
  
• There was discussion of capacity to deliver a "full suite" of services.
  
  
• Members talked about some examples and ways to demonstrate the need for women's services in their respective communities.
  
  
• Hearing that all agencies will be given 6 months notice for wind-down or transition, members with contracts ending March 31, 2010, assume that their current contracts will be extended.

The temporary closing of the Ontario Self Employment Benefit was also an important topic. Self employment is a popular choice for many women; the October 19 Globe and Mail reports that there was a 292% increase from 1976 in the number of women entrepreneurs compared to 97% for men. It is especially important in northern and rural areas where economic opportunities for women are limited. Many ACTEW members offered OSEB to their clients and had questions around applications sent before the October 9 shut-down and about the future of the program.

Labels: ACTEW_Activities, Meetings_and_Events, MTCU_Updates