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Welcoming Communities
Alberta's strong economy has placed high demands on its labour force resulting in critical skill shortages. The situation may become even more significant over the next decade as the province faces a number of demographic challenges - an aging population, low birthrate, urbanization, and decreased interprovincial migration - all of which will affect the province's ability to meet the labour force demands of a prosperous economy.
A key objective identified under Supporting Community Readiness in CAEP's 2007-2008 Operations Plan was to encourage the use of welcoming communities' best practices in the attraction and retention of newcomers to Central Alberta. Welcoming communities promote the full participation of newcomers in the social, cultural and economic life of the region without discrimination. In this project, newcomers encompass aboriginals who have traditionally lived on reserve land, people from out of province as well refugees, immigrant and foreign workers.
To launch a Welcoming Communities initiative, CAEP first offered a Welcoming Communities Forum in 2007. The Forum objectives were two-fold - first it would introduce the concept of Welcoming Communities as it relates to the attraction, retention and integration of new citizens and secondly, it would present a Best Practices Toolkit. The March 29, 2007 forum resulted in identifying three basic Welcoming Communities strategies going forward: strategic collaboration actions, direct client support efforts, and advocacy strategies. One of the strategic collaboration actions identified was to continue to promote Welcoming Communities Best Practices through forums, information sessions and resources made available on the CAEP website.
Forums were also held in March 2008 and 2009. All three Forums assembled municipal officials, educators, social planners, economic developers, industry representatives and agencies involved in immigrant settlement. Guest speakers and panelists discussed the topic of Welcoming Communities, highlighting the importance and the need to adopt best practices.
In 2009/2010 CAEP is seeking communities to host workshops to build capacity in Welcoming Communities best practices. We are also looking to update newcomer information on the website. For further information about CAEP's Welcoming Communties initiatives please see the links below or call 403.357.2237.
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