Humber College
IN-24: Innovation A

The Vanier Centre for Women, a medium and maximum correctional facility for female offenders located in Milton, ON, has partnered with Humber College, Elizabeth Fry Society of Peel-Halton and Landscape Ontario to deliver a Pre-Apprenticeship Horticultural Technician program on site at the institution. Our goal is to deliver the full Level 1 trade curriculum to 16 women currently incarcerated at the jail. Upon completion of their training all women will be eligible to participate in a 10 week work placement, either paid or unpaid. Those women remaining incarcerated well beyond program completion will be supervised by the grounds staff at the Vanier Centre, and will have their hours of work and tasks performed logged and submitted to the Administrative Coordinator at Humber College for cataloguing and forwarding to the Ministry upon request. This will help the women begin to earn the 5,400 hours needed to complete their apprenticeship training. Those women being released prior to full completion of the program, or soon thereafter, will be given the opportunity to participate in a paid placement with an employer, in the hopes of securing an apprenticeship. The funding for this program has been provided by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities and includes wage subsidies for employers who may be interested in hiring the women participating in this program. To ensure the success of this program a number of agencies/institutions have come together to provide the training and required wrap around supports needed to ensure the long-term success of the women involved in this program. Humber College will be responsible for the delivery of the Level 1 training for Horticultural Technician, as well as the administration coordination of the work placements with the assistance of Elizabeth Fry and Landscape Ontario. Elizabeth Fry Society of Peel –Halton is providing wrap around supports to ensure the success of these women, including counselling, transitional supports and input into the discharge planning of each woman involved in the program. They will also meet with the women post release and help them with interview skills and shopping for any needed attire for the job, as well as facilitating connections with other E. Fry locations throughout Ontario who may and should be connected with the women. Landscape Ontario has connections to employers throughout Ontario and will be able to help us identify employers in the women’s area of release who are interested and committed to providing placements for the students in this program. It is our hope that with the number of partners involved in this program that we will be able to maintain contact and provide support to these women until the end of 2016, helping them to complete as many credits as possible and acquiring paid positions that lead to apprenticeships. 7 or 16 graduated, all with Honours. Only 7 are left in the jail. the others were released prior to the end of program to do online courses, etc. The Superintendent at Vanier has told Humber that the notion of providing pre-apprenticeship training in a provincial correctional facility is the first of its kind in Ontario. This program has proven that inmates not only do well in this kind of learning environment but begin to thrive and see themselves in a whole new light. Some of the women did not have their high school credits and it was this training that gave them the reason to get their GED alongside their pre-apprenticeship training. When these women were released they were no longer high school dropout and in addition had the first level of a horticulture apprenticeship accomplished. Humber has provided wrap around support through a partnership with E Fry and is assisting in finding internship placements and jobs in the field in the communities that they have returned to. Some of the women are considering other post-secondary programs now that they know they are capable of being successful students as well. Vanier would like to expand these pre-apprenticeship offerings at the Jail and the success of this program will be a best practice that they can share with their Ministry to gain their support. In addition to the delivery of this program, a Faculty in Humber's School of Social and Community Services has applied for a research grant to evaluate the long term effectiveness of this program on the lives of the women who participated. A second proposal has been submitted to MAESD (formerly MTCU) for another cohort of students at the jail in the coming fiscal year and Humber will be hearing shortly if this will be approved.