Fired for Now: Getting fired, laid off, and hired again

You’ve been fired or laid off. You oscillate between feeling angry, afraid, inadequate, frustrated, or depressed – and chances are anyone you live with knows it.

The practical impact of joblessness is self-evident, but when a marriage starts to crack under the stress, or children feel their parents become emotionally unavailable or lash out at them, the toll can be far worse.

Yesterday I learned of one organization that’s stepping up to help with just that. Next month, the Catholic Family Services of Durham Region, encompassing many bedroom communities just east of Toronto, is implementing a new program called the Centre for Workers’ Families. Durham Region is also the centre of the auto manufacturing industry here in Canada, and like in the U.S., workers have been hit hard.

But unlike other support programs for laid-off workers which focus on practical issues like job retraining, job skills and financial management, the Centre for Workers’ Families will offer online counseling services and workshops run by trained social workers. The motivation is to help all family members deal with the stresses that come with job loss — and online counseling will be offered through its website, cfsdurham.com.

Other programs are “not addressing things like how do I keep my head up in my relationship, how do I not take it out on my partner, how do I deal with my kids?” explained Mary Wells, executive director of the organization, to The Toronto Star. She also went on to explain, “We know that family violence, child abuse all increase when there are major economic layoffs.”

Given the program will be available online, I wonder how the organization will screen requests for assistance, of if they will at all. Do you have to be a Catholic? Do you have to live in Durham region? (I am not a Catholic, I’m just impressed with the proactive efforts the CFS is taking in the region).

Certainly, if the service is flooded with requests, the need for other organizations to follow suit will be clear.