Education, Employment
& Social Enterprise

A Year in Review

Our Education, Employment, and Social Enterprise (EESE) program had a very successful year. Of the 84 youth who were employed by our social enterprises, 37 of these youth were on income support when they started with us. 17 are no longer receiving income support and all 17 of these youth worked in one of our social enterprises. Our social enterprises had a fantastic outcome of earned business revenue for a total of $526,158 in 2021-22. While navigating the pandemic, the EESE team continued to offer high-impact education and training programs, and provided employment supports.

Supporting Youth in EESE

At EESE, we use a strength and needs assessment tool, which is designed to inform both youth and their supports across their employment journey. The tool is designed to measure people’s attitudes, opinions, or perceptions of themselves on many different employment topic areas. Results from the 2021-22 year displayed many findings:

  • We witnessed job readiness improve by 6.1%, career decision-making improve by 9.3%, and skills enhance by more than 10%.

  • By working together, youth are 11% better at finding and 10.6% better at maintaining work.

  • We have seen in our youth the development of key skill and competencies required to positively influence employment, such as competence, hopefulness, openness, resilience, and commitment to improvement.

Operations Overview

Throughout the year as restrictions lifted, the EESE team rallied forward and made significant progress setting the stage for a strong 2022-23. Impact Construction was successful in launching a new marketing campaign and delivered on their snow clearing contract throughout the winter. Crust Craft Bakery, CFY’s newest social enterprise, secured a retail space and equipment, and ended the year by starting renovations for a full opening during the upcoming spring.  Neighbourhood experienced its strongest winter to date and exceeded its 2021-22 projections by 59%. The Shop finished up another fantastic year by cluing up some significant ongoing contracts.

Advancing Growth and Opportunities

CFY is always working towards growth, new opportunities, and enhancing strategic partnership, and the EESE team were happy to be a part two key areas for this year: 1) Newfoundland and Labrador Workforce Innovation Centre and 2) Western NL Food Hub.


Newfoundland and Labrador Workforce Innovation Centre

As of March 31st, 2022, this project has completed nine consultations in seven local communities with 58 young people ages of 16-26. The project also piloted 12 training programs. As the project continued, new methods of data collection were added. Nearly 3,300 hours of paid training was provided to 73 trainee positions. In terms of interventions, 88 support interventions were provided, and 70 barriers to employment and education were self-identified by trainees with mental health (24%) and difficulty learning in school (17%) being the most frequently-stated barriers to employment.

A focus group with the NL-WIC project team was conducted to map out the various barriers to employment that youth were facing. A series of evaluation questions were co-created by the project team and the evaluator, with support from Inspiring Communities. Below is the list of project impacts:

  1. Youth have access to the food, housing, legal and income support services they need as they prepare for employment.

  2. Government and agencies have increased understanding about how to support underemployment trainees on their journey to employment.

  3. Increase in the number of multi-industry social enterprises to serve communities.

  4. Youth have support navigating systems.

  5. Youth with barriers to learning are supported to find accommodations to help them success in education.

The NLWIC project is planned to continue into the 2022-23 year, with hopes of hosting an event and publishing a final report.


Western NL Food Hub

The EESE team supported the employment and training of youth employees in partnership with FoodFirst NL at the Western NL Food Hub. The support team travelled to Corner Brook and completed customer experienced training with six young people, and the team helped to hire an Employment Support Worker based in Corner Brook. Half of these young people accepted with in the Western NL Food Hub Pilot from August to November 2021. The Western NL Food Hub offered a click and collect service to local growers to sell and customers to buy at an affordable rate. Learn more at www.nlfoodhub.ca.