Improving the School-to-Work Transitions of Youth in Canada

(2015-2016)

The Canadian Career Development Foundation (CCDF) undertook this scoping review to examine how to support better school-to-work transitions for youth – those who had left school prior to graduation, who went directly to the labour market after high school graduation and those who had graduated from a PSE program. The main objectives of this project were to identify what is needed to improve school-to-work transitions of Canadian youth and identify research/programming/policy gaps for future project considerations.

Through this project, CCDF’s undertook four main methods of inquiry to build this scoping review (Scoping Review Report):

• The formation of a 12-member cross-sectoral Advisory Committee (AC) of key stakeholder representatives who advised both on the development of the project and provided input on the research, potential hypotheses, literature sources, and key informant contacts;
• A literature scan of Canadian and international research related to school-to-work transitions (Literature Scan);
• A survey of stakeholders (n=141) to identify the main factors contributing to poor school-to-work transitions of Canadian youth, promising practice and the identification of champions working to create bridges for better transitions for a range of youth (Survey Report); and
• Interviews of 11 key informants that served as a final check on the findings from the other methods of inquiry listed above (Key Informant Interview Report).

Tools, resources and materials available from the project: