Editorial

Written by Dale Sproule

There are dozens of agencies and programs throughout Southern Ontario that were created to help newcomers settle in Canada.

Next to your friends and family, you’ll find no better tour guide in Canada than your nearest Settlement Services provider. There are several different kinds of agencies. Most are non-profit organizations that exist for the sole purpose of helping immigrants settle and integrate, although some settlement services come from Public and Catholic School Boards, deeply rooted public service institutions or by faith based organizations who welcome clients of all nationalities and all faiths. When they can’t help you themselves, they can almost always refer you to someone who can. The most important factors in choosing a settlement agency include:
• the convenience of the centre to where you are living
• the quality of the services they offer
• the relevance of those services to your needs
• the range of services they offer – from settlement counselling to ESL classes to job finding clubs.

Just because you go to one organization to use their computers and look at the job board, doesn’t mean you can’t go to a different agency for language training and a third for employment services. When it comes to ESL, the more immigrant job seekers I speak to, the more I hear that English language skills are the single largest barrier to employment. Improving your communication skills in the Canadian marketplace may be the best career move you could ever make. If you enroll in classes and devote yourself to improving your English you could cut your job search time in half.

The second most common barrier to employment – according to people who have been looking for work for a long time – seems to be lack of computer skills.

Almost all centres and programs developed to help immigrants find work offer free access to computers and many offer computer courses. Find out if the programs you’re thinking about taking offer computer training.

But most importantly, just find a program – any program – that looks like it can help you and sign up for it. Every step you take brings you closer to success. Some job search programs report success rates 80 per cent and higher. Other programs like Skills International are still in the early stages, but promise to provide new effective job search alternatives for internationally educated professionals.

We hope you will find the 2007 Settlement Guide useful and that it helps you settle comfortably and quickly in your new country.

Dale Sproule, Editor