Deadline: 16-Jun-23
The Employment and Social Development Canada is inviting applications for the Opportunities Fund (OF) program to help persons with disabilities increase their economic participation and independence by:
- Preparing for, finding, and keeping good jobs or becoming self-employed, or
- Advancing in their careers or taking on new or greater responsibilities
The program also provides supports to employers to help them make their workplaces more inclusive and accessible.
The OF program funds a wide range of supports and services, including:
- Pre-employment and employability support
- Skills development
- Career advancement supports
Objectives
- This solicited process will support a pilot to test new approaches to identify and address learning disabilities among participants in foundational and transferable skills programming
- This pilot will:
- Explore different ways of integrating learning disability detection and supports into various learning environments, and
- Measure the impacts of participants’ outcomes, such as:
- Increased productivity
- Skills improvement
- Reduced anxiety
- Higher graduation rates
- Finding employment
Funding Information
- The maximum amount per project is $2,000,000.
Eligible Projects
- Projects must be multi-year and must end by March 31, 2027.
- Projects must be National in scope. To be considered a national project, activities must:
- Take place in 3 or more provinces/territories, or
- Be delivered within a specific geographic region but have the potential to address the same or similar issues in other parts of the country
- Projects must align with at least 1 of the program objectives:
- Helping persons with learning disabilities:
- Prepare for, find, and keep good jobs, or
- Become self-employed
- Helping persons with learning disabilities:
- Advance in their careers, or
- Take on new or greater responsibilities
- Providing supports to employers to help them make their workplaces more inclusive and accessible for persons with learning disabilities
- The department will consider proposed projects eligible for funding if they clearly demonstrate how they meet the objectives of this Solicited Call for Proposals.
Eligibility Criteria
- This solicited process is open to invited organizations only.
- Eligible applicants
- Your organization must be 1 of the following types:
- Not-for-profit organizations
- For-profit organizations
- For-profit organizations may be eligible for funding if the nature and intent of the activity:
- Is non-commercial
- Is not intended to generate profit
- Supports program priorities and objectives
- Your organization must show:
- How it has experience working with persons with learning disabilities, or
- How it can partner with other organizations who have this expertise
- Your organization must also have:
- At least 3 years of experience within the last 5 years in providing essential skills training (or foundational and transferable skills training) to at least 1 of the following under-represented groups in the labour market:
- Women
- Persons with disabilities
- Indigenous people
- Members of official language minority communities
- Newcomers
- Visible minorities, including Black Canadians and other racialized groups
- Demonstrated capacity to work in partnership with other organizations towards common goals,
- Demonstrated experience with:
- Piloting innovative approaches in skills training, and
- Collecting and reporting reliable data
- At least 3 years of experience within the last 5 years in providing essential skills training (or foundational and transferable skills training) to at least 1 of the following under-represented groups in the labour market:
- Your organization must be 1 of the following types:
For more information, visit Employment and Social Development Canada.