Oups, this website is outdated! But Dialogue McGill has a new website!
News
Agreement between Dialogue McGill and the Secretariat for Relations with English-speaking Quebecers to Address Issue of English-speaking Graduates’ Retention through Employability
Press Release May 23, 2018. Announcement at McGill University
(l to r): Louis Arsenault (McGill); Gerald Cutting (Townshippers’ Association); Iris Unger, (Youth Employment Services); Kathleen Weil (Minister responsible for Relations with English-Speaking Quebecers); Daniel Weinstock (McGill’s Institute for Health and Social Policy and Dialogue McGill); and Caroline van Rossum (CIUSSS Estrie-CHUS). Photo: Owen Egan
Through a funding agreement between McGill and the Quebec Government announced at McGill on Wednesday May 23, 2018, Dialogue McGill will support two community-based projects, one led by Youth Employment Services (YES) and the other by Townshippers’ Association of Estrie. The Institute for Health and Social Policy will also conduct two research projects aimed at furthering knowledge on factors that affect the retention of young English-speaking Quebecers and at breaking the barriers to employability for young English-speaking graduates in Quebec.
The first sponsorship project will be implemented by YES. A series of concrete actions, including job search workshops, mentoring, and internships with linguistic facilitation, will be offered to English-speaking students and recent graduates directly by YES.
The second sponsorship project will be conducted by the Townshippers’ Association of Estrie in conjunction with the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS and the educational institutions of Estrie. It is a French immersion program designed to ensure that recent English-speaking graduates from health and social services programs will have the language skills required to ensure employability in the public health care system in Quebec.
The third project is a research project on linguistic profiles for health professionals. Through the development and testing of linguistic profiles for nurses, institutions in Quebec will be equipped with a description of the language competencies required to provide an adequate level of service in English and the testing instruments to measure the required competency level.
The fourth project, entitled “Study on Motivation of English-Speaking Youth to Stay in Quebec,” will expand a survey done by John Abbott College in 2017-2018 to all English-language CEGEPs in Quebec. To be carried out over a two-year period, the study is designed to expand our knowledge about the percentage of English-speaking youth who intend to stay in Quebec post-graduation and those who intend to leave the province. It will identify the factors influencing the students’ decisions. It will produce comparative data between English-speaking students and French-speaking students, between different programs, and between the regions of Quebec.
“The information generated from our research,” said Professor Daniel Weinstock, Director of the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy, and Principal Investigator of Dialogue McGill, “will help make informed decisions about the targeted actions required to address some of the factors contributing to the exodus of young people from Quebec, and to make smart investments towards these actions.”
“This is a worthy initiative”, added Paul Frazer, MA, McGill Global Programs’ International Advisory Board Chair, in his comment on the announcement of this research project in the McGill Reporter. “In addition to determining why young English-speaking graduates leave Quebec it would be interesting to determine why (…) young French-speaking graduates depart. We may assume that the reasons are significantly different but that may not be the case. (…) The findings may be a surprise and could assist the government in developing policies that take into consideration the hopes and aspirations of both groups.”
Dialogue McGill enthusiastically welcomes this agreement with the Secretariat for Relations with English-speaking Quebecers: it represents a joint effort and a smart use of expertise with the goal of ensuring better access to health and social services for English-speaking Quebecers.
