NTAB’s Partnerships for 2025-2026
Partnership: Rainy River District Spring Career Fairs
NTAB will plan and co-host a virtual career fair for potential Newcomers to the Rainy River and Kenora Districts; featuring employers from Northwestern Ontario.
Issue and Priority: The Rainy River District School Board, along with NTAB and other service providers hosted a Spring Career Fair at the Fort Frances School and at the Atikokan Little Falls Community Centre.
Participating employers will host a booth for the duration of the event, provide details on their organization and available job opportunities in advance of the event, discuss job opportunities with interested students, provide materials (e.g. application forms) to students as applicable, and conduct informal and formal interviews as appropriate. Service providers attended and set up informational booths as well.
Key Partners: Rainy River District Schools Board, Employers, NTAB and other Service Providers.
Expected Outcome: By participating the employers were able to access the members of the Rainy River District youth job market in one place, promote their business/organization as a possible summer employment opportunity for students and connect with potential cooperative education participants. In turn, local youth benefited from gaining an awareness of what type of work is available in their communities, as well as the ability to apply directly on the spot for various student opportunities.
Status: This partnership is complete: Fort Frances Spring Career Fair was held on April 16, 2025 and Atikokan Spring Career Fair was held on May 9 and 10, 2025.
Partnership: Employment Ontario Employer Resource Tool Kit
NTAB will gather valuable information from various service providers and assemble an employer resource kit, which will include;
- Wage subsidy information and eligibility
- Workshops and training available to potential, new and existing employees
- Funding available to train/re-train/hire staff
Issue and Priority: This resource tool will have the ability to be accessed through our website, along with digital and hard copies that will be available to employers and other service providers. We will also collect feedback from participants.
Key Partners: NTAB and Employment Ontario Service Providers.
Expected Outcome: This resource tool will provide employers with every available option to assist them to maintain a strong team at their place of work.
Status: This partnership is in the planning stages.
Partnership: Fresh Start Resource Connection
NTAB will plan and host a service provider meeting in the Rainy River District to collaborate on potential inmate service needs; such as Re-integration, Employment, Housing, Counselling, etc. We will then (together with service providers) host an information session to selected inmates within the Fort Frances Jail (who will be pre-approved by the Ministry of the Solicitor General/Fort Frances Jail).
Issue and Priority: This initiative will incorporate the tools needed for successful re-integration into the labour force. It will benefit the inmates by connecting them to various service providers to have a better understanding of what type of local post-supports are available to them upon release.
Key Partners: NTAB, Employment Ontario Service Provider, Ministry of the Solicitor General, and Fort Frances Jail.
Expected Outcome: By connecting eligible job seekers to employers who are experiencing labour shortages, we hope to address some of these gaps to enhance opportunities for newly released inmates.
Status: This partnership is in the planning stages.
NTAB’s Partnerships for 2024-2025
Partnership: Virtual Career Fair for Newcomers
NTAB will plan and co-host a virtual career fair for potential Newcomers to the Rainy River and Kenora Districts; featuring employers from Northwestern Ontario.
Issue and Priority: This virtual event will incorporate everything required in a strong partnership/event and will have successful measurable outcomes for job seekers, employers and community participants. NTAB will also collect satisfaction surveys.
Key Partners: NTAB will be the lead.
Expected Outcome: By connecting Newcomers who are unemployed/under-employed to employers who are experiencing labour shortages, we hope to address some of these gaps to enhance opportunities for employers and job seekers.
Status: This partnership was completed on March 20, 2025.
Partnership: 2025 Calendar
Using our most relevant data create a calendar for distribution among our partners and stakeholders. Each month would have a topic and information that tells our story and shares local intelligence and challenges and gaps. The topics would be based on our trends; aging population, in-migration, training, skilled trades, older workers/generation gap, health care, hospitality and tourism, shifts in key employment sectors, literacy and essential skills, and Indigenous workforces. We can also showcase the use of EO services. This would be a tool for keeping our brand and logo fresh and relevant and would give NTAB more exposure and have others that might not know what our services are see how we can be of assistance providing the information needed to be aware of the work that we do. It would be a way to share our success stories and best practices as well.
Issue and Priority: NTAB produced a calendar in previous years and it was very well received. It would be a good project to get our information out there again in a yearlong format. Not just when we have partnership activities or Community Consultations. It would show the public what we do with the information that we collect as well as being a useful tool for sharing our statistics and goals.
Key Partners: NTAB will be the lead.
Expected Outcome: NTAB would look at distributing these calendars through the use of the local Chambers of Commerce to target employers, businesses and all of the Employment Ontario Service providers. It could also be sent out as our December Christmas greeting card to our mail outs.
Status: This partnership was completed on November 25, 2024.
Partnership: Economic Development Training – Leadership Through Change
In our small communities, issues around an ever-changing economy remain, as we are still feeling some affects from the COVID-19 pandemic, townships, cities and municipalities struggle to maintain a strong labour force, while developing new strategies for recruitment to local areas. NTAB will partner with NCDS and work with a trainer to host a professional development event focused to leadership professionals.
Issue and Priority: NTAB will collect and utilize feedback from participants, while offering training to those professionals and community organizations who have been affected by the changing workforce post-pandemic.
With an aging population and out-migration of our local youth, we struggle to sustain viable community opportunities to create growth.
Key Partners: NCDS and NTAB, local community support partners, along with a hired Trainer. We also asked various organizations and stakeholders to share the event details.
Expected Outcome: This interactive session will offer new ideas in how to manage change in a working environment.
The one-day session will;
Build trust, commitment, and positive results through any change initiative. Organizational change is constant. And yet many people react to change with denial or resistance. As a change leader, your ability to help people overcome their reactions and get onboard with new initiatives is critical to your success. In this one-day workshop, you’ll gain practical tools that will enable you to
manage reactions to change and communicate in a manner that inspires followership and optimal
productivity through any change initiative.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Understand your role as a change leader
- Get clear on your own reaction to change as well as the reaction of those you work with
- Appreciate why others may react negatively to change and how best to respond
- Adapt your communication style to gain buy-in and support from others toward change initiatives
- Increase the readiness to embrace change and overcome resistance in your work environment
COURSE BENEFITS
- Embrace or reconcile the reality of change, address and decrease anxiety, and concentrate on productivity and results
- Begin establishing your reputation within your organization as someone that can manage change and demonstrate agility and resilience
- Set a positive example for colleagues or direct reports when handling significant changes in the workplace
COURSE FEATURES
- Self-assessment that will give you insight into how you react to change
- Practical case scenarios to apply your new change management skills
- Job aids to ensure you have the tools to apply your learning back in your work environment
Status: Completed on April 9, 2024 in Fort Frances.
This Employment Ontario program is funded in part by the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario.
