Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Whether its looking to get back into the workforce, a desire to upgrade skills or wanting to go back to school, knowing where to start can be overwhelming.
For many the answer could be right in their own backyard-or more specifically Kingston Literacy and Skills, located at 9 Advance Ave. in Napanee. The ministry funded, non-profit organization is something of a best-kept secret in town-something they’re hoping to fix as they re-engage with the community following the pandemic.
“We provide different upgrading options for people between the ages of 19-64,” said KL&S program manager Amanda Morrison, noting their agency falls under the Employment Ontario umbrella. “Our services are free to Ontarian residents. We can help people who maybe have been out of school for a long time and need to go back to get their high school, we can build their skills so they’ll be more successful when they go off to working towards those credits. We can prep people for college and one of the biggest things we do is upgrade skills for employment.”
Their clients have a wide range of backgrounds whether its someone who is getting a little older and wants to transition from a more physically demanding occupation to an office job, to someone just looking to break into a new career field.
“It’s a great opportunity for people to build skills, especially during the pandemic where people were laid off and lost their job,” said Morrison. “It’s a good opportunity for people to get in there and with the rise in expectation of digital literacy and technology, our computer classes are really great opportunities to build those skills. We’ve had people come in who are ready to jump right into Excel, they know the stuff that leads up to that and we’ve had people come in and say they’re not even sure they can type 10 words a minute. We do an assessment of their abilities and we develop a plan and get people started whenever they’re ready.”
To learn more about the program, contact 613-547-2012 ext. 119 or email Amorrison@KLSread.ca.