Sharing the commitment to prepare Ontario’s youth for the highly-skilled economy of tomorrow, Skills Ontario and Edge Factor are continuing our partnership, to build the skilled trades workforce.
Over the past 30 years, Skills Ontario has become well known for encouraging youth to consider careers in the skilled trades and technologies. They engage with school boards, colleges, and companies to provide opportunities for youth to explore and develop skills to launch successful careers.
Providing Equal Opportunities for All Youth
Edge Factor is keen to build on the many years of partnership because we share Skills Ontario's mission "to champion and stimulate the development of world-class technological and employability skills in Ontario youth.” Our shared priorities include providing equal opportunities for all youth. Keeping diversity, inclusion, and representation as priorities as we help to build a diverse and robust skilled workforce.
So much of the Edge Factor media, including much of the content featuring Skills Ontario alumni, help debunk many misnomers about Skilled Trades careers, and some of those include that skilled trades are a man’s world. More and more industries are realizing that while master tradespeople are retiring there aren't enough young apprentices coming through to fill the gap. One solution is to encourage underrepresented communities to explore careers in skilled trades.
To empower all youth, including women and Indigenous youth, to consider a career in the skilled trades and technologies the Edge Factor partnership with Skills Ontario will help to engage with students, teachers, parents, volunteers, employers, and mentors to ensure their programs connect education, experience, and employment.
Three ways the Skills Ontario and Edge Factor engages with communities to build the workforce pipeline:
- Skilled Trades Media for in-school presentations across Ontario
- Cinematic stories to promote Canada’s largest skills competition
- A FREE tool kit to support summer camps for skills development
“Students are capable of great things. They need to know that exploring careers in the skilled trades could be the catalyst to a rewarding and successful future,” says Jeremy Bout, President of Edge Factor. “It’s important that they explore who they are and Skills Ontario allows them to do that in an exciting, positive and very valuable way. Edge Factor is excited to partner with Skills Ontario and work together to inspire the next generation of creators and innovators.“
Skills Ontario & Edge Factor partner to create FREE Career exploration tools
Together, Skills Ontario and Edge Factor understand the tremendous need to equip schools with tangible tools that inspire students to explore careers and plan for a successful and rewarding future.
Edge Factor uses the power of cinematic storytelling to take students and job-seekers on a journey from "I have no idea what I want to do with my life" to discovering industries, careers, CTE and postsecondary programs, Soft Skills, STEAM and local opportunities. We have criss-crossed North America to produce thousands of videos and interactive activities that highlight every industry and deliver these tools through our platform.The people behind each company featured in Edge Factor videos have stories and career opportunities worth sharing. Stories of real life people making a difference in their communities, who are building ecosystems and paving the way for the next generation of innovators, manufacturers and entrepreneurs.
From January to December 2022, Edge Factor and partners that include Skills Ontario, are launching 4 event toolkits for companies, schools, and workforce leaders to share and inspire students and job-seekers to launch career pathways! Each toolkit will be available for FREE for 3 months and will include videos such as Career Profiles, Soft Skills on-the-Job, virtual field trips, award winning edutainment films, and more. Families, students, and community members will be able to watch these videos in their homes, at live or virtual events, in presentations, over social media, in newsletters, and beyond.
With these 4 toolkits and other components of this partnership, Skills Ontario will engage families and job-seekers at home and online. They will reach educators, school counsellors, and students in classrooms, and engage community members at events.
Each toolkit includes promotional tools and practical “How To” Guides for companies, schools, and workforce leaders to host an engaging event, with checklists on everything they need to know on how to plan, promote, host and follow-up on engaging virtual or live events.
Pre-register today for the free 2022 Toolkits.
- Future Skills Toolkit: available for free in January - February 2022 - As students are choosing which programs to enrol in for the following year, Edge Factor’s Future Skills toolkit will promote and celebrate technical education programs and encourage students to get involved! (This will be a great tool for US organizations to celebrate CTE Month too!)
- Diversity in Skilled Trades Toolkit: available for free in March - May 2022 - This toolkit is all about showcasing diverse people in diverse careers in the skilled trades. Coinciding with awareness days like March’s “International Women's Day” and April’s “Celebrate Diversity” Month, this toolkit will provide a ton of content for your organization and network to celebrate real life men and women who have launched rewarding career pathways.
- Summer Camp Toolkit: available for free in June - August 2022 - Summer Learning Programs and Summer Camps are in need of turnkey tools to engage students! This toolkit shows how Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math all come alive in real world careers! Perfect for summer camps or family activities.
- Rock MFG DAY: available for free in September - November 2022 - October is Manufacturing Day/ Month and we are providing the 2022 Rock MFG DAY kit for everyone to highlight the extraordinary world of advanced manufacturing. This toolkit includes resources to promote manufacturing careers and technology and showcase how STEAM comes alive in this industry.
Edge Factor unites efforts in a community through our e-learning platform. We have created thousands of videos, interactive activities, and lesson plans that focus on career exploration. K-12 and Postsecondary schools, companies, and organizations partner with Edge Factor to help tackle workforce development regionally and nationally. Using the power of storytelling, Edge Factor media showcases industries and career profiles, teaches soft skills, shows how STEAM comes alive on-the-job, teaches Financial Literacy, provides Virtual Workplace Experiences, promotes training and career opportunities, and much more. Each of the 4 toolkits in 2022 will include specially selected videos and tools from Edge Factor’s robust library, to meet the target audience and theme of the toolkit.
Learn more about Skills Ontario or email Paul Clipsham at pclipsham@skillsontario.com.
Learn more about Edge Factor
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