The Challenge
The Ontario Employment Support Service is undergoing significant transformation that includes changes in how the supports for job seekers living with developmental disabilities are funded.
Employment with purpose is well documented to contribute to overall positive health and wellbeing. People with intellectual disabilities often need additional, or different supports to ensure meaningful employment opportunities are matched to their aptitude rather than availability.
Community Living Toronto is a community-based organization that offers supports, including employment programs, and services to people with intellectual disabilities and their families.
Under the leadership of Community Living Toronto, an innovative and collaborative approach to disability employment was designed, called MyJobMatch. This work was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development.
The Approach
Pier Labs led the evaluation of the pilot project, taking a flexible approach that allowed for iterative feedback and enabled the project to adjust in real time. Traditional evaluation methodologies were applied in balance with human-centered approaches to the evaluation was both comprehensive and feasible to implement in the day-to-day work of staff on the ground.
The Pier Labs team is stacked with expertise in project and program evaluation, disability support, and employment support. This coupled with our keen understanding of the unique function not-for-profit service providers fulfil in the social service network of support.
The Outcome
Our iterative approach to evaluation identified opportunities for platform refinement and supported the ambitious path from public-facing prototype to the next iteration (V2) of the platform.
The evaluation provided recommendations for what is now “V3” and a complementary platform that is specific to job seekers, to enhance the offering and provide important wraparound supports to people with intellectual disabilities.
The Impact
While our work contributed the evolution of the MyJobMatch platform and surrounding business processes, evaluation is ultimately about representing the voices of the people impacted by the work and building trust and relationships with those people by being responsive to their perspectives.
At this stage of pilot testing, the staff who are responsible for changing work processes and using the technology, were impacted the most directly and our evaluation helped to formalize their perspectives and reflect them in the platform in tangible ways.