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The New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training has officially launched its third Pathways to Professions experiential learning program, and we are so excited to introduce this year’s new research streams and to announce our partnership with the Government of New Brunswick for this summer’s offerings.

What is Pathways to Professions?

Pathways to Professions – or P2P, as we like to call it – is a 13-week week experiential learning program that provides post-secondary students with meaningful work experience, labour market training, and skills development opportunities.

Through P2P, students interested in research and communications are matched with professional researchers to provide NB organizations with relevant, data-informed evidence. While completing real-world research, they attend a full curriculum of workshops on workplace-readiness skills, including Project Management, Effective Writing, Leadership, Assertiveness, Presentation Skills and more.

Our vision for P2P is to empower students with job readiness skills and experience in a wide variety of in-demand areas, increasing their marketability in the future workplace and overall likelihood to attain meaningful work in New Brunswick. And this, of course, is only a quick summary. More information on P2P is available in last year’s Program in Review.

2022 research streams

Led by NB-IRDT

Last summer’s research streams are back in full force this year and so are some of last year’s students.

Four P2P student alumni have returned for a second summer to take on an advanced project that examines the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in NB using survey data that can be readily compared to a pre-pandemic timepoint. This work will provide insight into how the mental health of New Brunswickers has been impacted by the pandemic and uncover NB-specific risk factors for pandemic-related negative mental health experiences.

BoostNB: Economic indicators

Back for a third summer, the BoostNB research project aims to provide up to date and straight-forward information about the NB economy, along with analysis showing whether NB is moving toward (or away from) recommended economic goals.

PopNB: Population dynamics

The PopNB project is back for a third year as well, with a goal to analyze and present data on the population growth, mobility, and demographics of NB, which can then be compared to other provinces. This year, P2P students will be focusing in particular on the province’s rural-urban divide.

VitalSignsNB: Impact of access to healthcare

Finally, the VitalSignsNB project is returning for its second year. This summer, the project is focused on understanding the impact of routine, direct access to primary healthcare providers on the health outcomes of New Brunswickers with chronic conditions, and the implications for NB’s healthcare system. The research team will quantify and characterize the population of NB residents with chronic conditions who lack access to routine primary care and compare a number of health outcomes in this population to individuals who have routine access to care using administrative data at NB-IRDT.

Led by GNB

Thanks to the involvement of our partners at GNB, P2P is able to offer four new research streams this year.

EqualityNB: Equality profile dashboard

Re-imagining how information is shared, the EqualityNB project team will be replacing the province’s previous Equality Profile with a digital dashboard of statistical information about women in New Brunswick.

InvitationNB: Market analysis and opportunity development

The InvitationNB project team will be working on The Invitation: a cross-departmental collaborative initiative to make NB the Province of Choice in Atlantic Canada to visit and live. The Invitation aims to strengthen and showcase the province as the best place to build community in cities, towns, and villages across our province.

RecruitNB: Identifying future labour gaps

The RecruitNB project team will research GNB departments and identify future labour shortages among them and make recommendations on how to best support future resource planning.

YouthSucceedNB: Evaluation services for youth

Finally, the YouthSucceedNB team will be exploring how to better support youth who use assistance programs to transition more successfully to adulthood and independence. To do so, the team will apply a critical eye to the current processes of key youth-specific programs and identify opportunities that these programs may be lacking.

We love supporting student research at NB-IRDT, and we can’t wait to share each team’s findings once the results are in.

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