Inspired by the gaps they were seeing with workplace learning and certification opportunities, the team at Fair Chance Learning in Newmarket launched a learning platform to help people upskill, re-skill, or learn something new.
Martha Jez, CEO at Fair Chance Learning, said the company wanted to leverage its experience in learning at the public school level and with technology partners to build an online learning experience to meet the needs of individuals.
The program is called FC Skills. It offers online course on Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, Intuit Quickbooks, Intuit Design for Delight, digital literacy, and entrepreneurship. All the courses are completed through an online platform built in-house by Fair Chance Learning.
The company applied for a skills development grant, which is a provincial program, and received it last May. Shortly after that, it hired Kat Ennis, a program coordinator who helped build the platform launched in July.
She said it has been incredible to be building the program while also seeing participants going through it first-hand. So far, hundreds of people have participated, including newcomers to Canada, English language learners, older adults looking to become more technically skilled, women returning to the workforce, and students.
“We’ve seen the gap across all populations,” she said. “We very quickly realized this is something that serves a much broader spectrum of people.”
One of those participants is Ianina Sivakova who came to Canada after leaving Ukraine and is now living in Calgary. She is a teacher herself and said because of that she loves learning.
Sivakova was connected with Fair Chance Learning through the tech sector and learned about the program that way. She decided to start with the Microsoft Word course and was surprised by how much she had to learn.
“I thought it’s very easy because it’s Microsoft Word, everyone’s using it but when I started this course, I realized it was not easy for me,” she said.
While Sivakova had been using Word for a while now she said she had never realized all the tools it involves or all the possibilities with the software.
Once she completed that course and certification, she began taking the course for Adobe Photoshop. She said she is a beginner photographer and hopes the program will help improve her skills there.
Not only has it helped her technically, but it has also been a big help in life professionally as FC Skills hired her as a program advisor.
"She’s so bright and we wanted to have her join the team," Ennis said of the hiring.
She will also be able to help support other people from Ukraine by overcoming language barriers and using their shared experiences to help them succeed.
Not everyone will end up in the same position as Sivakova but she said the program is very good about leverage its connections and helping prepare people for employment.
"I think this is the biggest help that newcomers can get," she said. "This is a big chance to try."
For Jez, that is one of her biggest goals at Fair Chance Learning. Not only does she want to help people find employment but she wants to prepare people to have meaningful careers.
“When we’re thinking about the skill set that they’re developing, we’re having real conversations. You know, we understand that there’s this gap with service industry right now and we need to address that but we want to make sure they have the skill set to walk into an office, to walk into an IT role, to walk into their own business,” she said.
The program is free thanks to the provincial grant and the only requirements are that you are 15 years or older and you have an Ontario address.
Participants begin by meeting with their program advisor. Then there is a skills assessment to help identify where the participants strengths are and what courses would benefit them most. Once they are enrolled in a course, there are weekly check-ins with their advisor to make sure they are staying on track.
Ennis said it is a very hands-on program and they want to ensure the participants feel supported.
"We know connecting to a person and getting to know who they are is really important,” she said.
All program advisors have done a course through the platform themselves, she said, as she wanted them all to know first-hand what it is like and how it feels to be completing this kind of certification while balancing all the other elements of your daily life.
So far hundreds of students are engaged in the FC Skills platform and Ennis said the biggest piece of positive feedback they have received from them is about the amount of support they receive.
"That’s been something that’s made us stand out from other programs that are out there that are available," she said.
FC Skills aims to have 2,500 students enrolled and 1,800 certifications by March 2023. Participants can be referred through a partner agency or apply online themselves.
