Positioning Bulletin
The OAYEC Positioning Bulletin shares OAYEC's positions, values or discussion items related to the youth employment sector, and is available the first Monday of every month.
TOPIC FOR August 7, 2007:
National Youth Entrepreneur Social Attitude and Innovation Study
Backgrounder
Hire Prospects, OAYEC’s Youth Survey Outreach Service, is currently working in partnership with D-Code, the Research firm developing insights on youth, on a National Youth Entrepreneur Social Attitude and Innovation Study. The goal of this project is to inform counselors, programs and policy makers of the current attitudes toward entrepreneurship, and provide suggestions for encouraging entrepreneurship on individual, program and societal levels.
The study will steward the interest and development of the counseling profession by illuminating individual, community and social perspectives on recently identified trends in attitudes toward entrepreneurship as a career option. We will do this through an engagement process which includes interviews and solution-focused workshops of groups of young entrepreneurs, and surveys and workshops of youth seeking employment who have considered an entrepreneurial pursuit.
Process
Advisory Committee Meeting
An advisory committee has been created which consists of practitioners who will guide the project, work to deepen the project’s impact and extend the project through future funding. The first meeting was done via teleconference on Tuesday May 15. The purpose of this meeting was to engage stakeholders in the issue, introduce the project, discuss how the project could impact youth and employment support programs, and identify strategies to expand this research across Canada. This meeting also provided an opportunity for stakeholders to discuss their current interest and involvement with the issue of youth entrepreneurship, research application, and possibilities for future funding. All stakeholders involved were interested in continued involvement on the steering committee. The committee agreed to meet again in September to review the draft report. If you are interested in participating in this committee please contact us.
Online Survey Development and Design
Meetings took place with D-code in April to develop the survey design for the project, following this meeting the online survey was created and ready for distribution on May 15th, 2007.
Counseling Centre Engagement Strategy
A conference call was organized with identified members of OAYEC’s membership, to assist with outreach for the survey. An email was sent out to encourage participation for member centers to recruit unemployed youth who were interested in starting a business.
Online Survey
The survey was launched on May 22, 2007 and ran until June 22, 2007.
Interim Survey Results
To date we have received 351 survey results from the online survey. Listed below is a graph of the distribution of results in British Columbia and Ontario.
Ontario “Youth Entrepreneurship…Attitudes!”
The Ontario based innovation workshop: “Youth Entrepreneurship…Attitudes”, took place on Wednesday July 25th, 2007 from 10:00 to 4:00 at Metro Hall in Toronto, Ontario. Hire Prospects extended an invitation for individuals between the ages of 16 to 29, interested in entrepreneurship or who own their own business to attend. There were over 50 participants who attended the forum from across Ontario. The participants consisted of service providers and young entrepreneurs. A representative from Goodboy Clothing Company presented the keynote which was very inspiring and provided an excellent example of the success of a group of young entrepreneurs. The Keynote set the tone for the day and many young entrepreneurs shared their experiences with starting their own business.
British Columbia “Youth Entrepreneurship … Attitudes!"
A series of innovation workshops are being planned in British Columbia during the last week of August. There will be focus groups held in Surrey at the Pacific Community Resources Centre, and in Vancouver at the Garnish Girls Showroom. The findings from British Columbia will be an opportunity for Hire Prospects to expand its services and build research that creates awareness around the issues young entrepreneurs face when running their businesses.
Conclusion
This is a very exciting opportunity. The results of the National Youth Entrepreneur Social Attitude and Innovation Study are intended to contribute to the economic and social productivity of young Canadians. Findings of the research will be disseminated in a final report and through a FUTURES conference workshop. Please sign up for this Hire Prospects workshop if you are interested in the results from this research project.
For more information, please contact:
Soni Dasmohapatra
sdasmohapatra@oayec.org
The GO TO organization for youth employment issues.
The OAYEC Positioning Bulletin is a monthly newsletter provided by the Ontario Association of Youth Employment Centres. OAYEC's mission is to support and advocate for a sustainable youth employment delivery network.
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Contact: Soni Dasmohapatra, Researcher, sdasmohapatra@oayec.org
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