{"id":44143,"date":"2021-03-08T13:56:23","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T18:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=44143"},"modified":"2021-03-08T13:56:23","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T18:56:23","slug":"dress-for-success-pivots-services-to-help-women-through-pandemic-barriers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/dress-for-success-pivots-services-to-help-women-through-pandemic-barriers\/","title":{"rendered":"Dress for Success pivots services to help women through pandemic barriers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on Canadians financially with some being hit worse than others: Statistics Canada reports full-time work among Canadians is down 23 per cent from pre-COVID levels and among young women, it\u2019s down almost 30 per cent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cMany of the other organizations in the city that they would have previously been getting services from were completely closed, so they turned to us,\u201d says Mary Tersigni-Paltrinieri, executive director of Dress for Success Ottawa.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Dress for Success is a non-profit organization that aims to empower women to achieve economic independence by providing them with various programs and services to help them thrive in the workforce.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Once COVID-19 lockdown hit the organization re-examined how they could continue to serve the women within their community.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Tersigni-Paltrinieri says the organization pivoted all of its one-on-one career centre appointments to a virtual platform within the first three weeks of the initial lockdown last March. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">At one point in April 2020, 60 per cent of the organization\u2019s clients were unemployed, reflecting the bigger effects the pandemic has on women, according to Tersigni-Paltrinieri.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cWe had a pretty good sense that this pandemic was going to be disproportionately impacting women,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Dress for Success\u2019s annual International Women\u2019s Day campaign focuses on helping women get on track with their career goals, stating that a<\/span><span class=\"s1\"> $25 donation helps one woman start their journey with the organization.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">International Womxn&#39;s Day is just 3 days away! Help us get womxn back into the workforce after a year that has seen many womxn\u2019s jobs being impacted because of the pandemic. It only takes $25 welcome someone into <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/DFSOttawa?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#DFSOttawa<\/a>.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kdhCoJOFbB\">https:\/\/t.co\/kdhCoJOFbB<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/IWD2021?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#IWD2021<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/ChooseToChallenge?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#ChooseToChallenge<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1yShfmarUX\">pic.twitter.com\/1yShfmarUX<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Dress for Success Ottawa (@DFSOttawa) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DFSOttawa\/status\/1367813523770900481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 5, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cWith the pandemic and this many women out of work we have been very hard at work focusing on getting women back into the workforce,\u201d says Tersigni-Paltrinieri.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"s1\">She says they have completely pivoted their programs to follow current public health guidelines.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Some of these programs include a dress rehearsal mock interview program, career counseling, a series of professional development workshops and a suiting program that provides women with professional attire.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cAs an organization, Dress for Success is set up on being face-to-face, one-on-one with people,\u201d she says. \u201cOnce COVID hit we took a long look at how we could continue serving women in our community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">She notes the organization\u2019s suiting program has seen the biggest pivot. It was closed for over five months during 2020 and reopened in September as a hybrid program to limit the people in their space.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cWe were offering some appointments in person in our boutique and then other appointments were being offered virtually by curbside pickup,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The suiting program is supplied for by clothing donations which used to take place once a month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cBecause of the pandemic and because you can\u2019t have people just freely walking into the space\u2026 we chose to move to an appointment-based system with a contact list drop-off,\u201d says Tersigni-Paltrinieri. \u201cAll of our donors make an appointment online for a certain time, when they arrive they give us a call and then one of our volunteers comes out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The next clothing donation will take place on March 15 and is fully booked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe community has been very generous in their support of us over the past ten years but definitely within the past year, wanting to continue to help and come out and support even during a pandemic with the clothing donations has been really wonderful,\u201d says Tersigni-Paltrinieri.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In May, the organization launched a \"Helping Women Now\" program, born out of the concerns they received from their clients. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The program offers peer-to-peer support to combat feelings of isolation and allows women to talk about their issues, whether they\u2019re financial or personal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cEach client can have as many appointments as they want, it\u2019s a 45-minute session one-to-one and they\u2019re able to deal with one specific issue that\u2019s most pressing to them,\u201d she says. These appointments often point women towards some of the other services the organization offers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Many of these clients are fighting ageism, sexism, racism and homophobia while also trying to put themselves and their careers first. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThat\u2019s part of the reason why the pandemic has been so disproportionately hard for women across all ages and races and socio-economic positions,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cA woman has to be provided with confidence to feel empowered, to know that they can do it and to know that they can get whatever job it is that they want,\u201d she says. \u201cIt make take some work, but we\u2019re here to support them and that\u2019s the most important thing, I think.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Tersigni-Paltrinieri says the organization envisions a world where women are empowered regardless of these barriers they currently face. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThat\u2019s where we want to get to one day and until we get there our organization will be here to support women and continue to remove those barriers for them so that we can empower every single woman in our community,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">To make a donation, or to find out more about Dress for Success's programs, go to <a href=\"https:\/\/ottawa.dressforsuccess.org\/\"><span class=\"s2\">https:\/\/ottawa.dressforsuccess.org\/<\/span><\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Here is Mary Tesigni-Paltrinieri speaking with CHUO:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on Canadians financially with some being hit worse than others: Statistics Canada reports full-time work among Canadians is down 23 per cent from pre-COVID levels and among young women, it\u2019s down almost 30 per cent. \u201cMany of the other organizations in the city that they would have previously been getting services&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":44166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[284,6859,6763,1177],"radio":[1290],"origine":[267,269,1571],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44143"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44143"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=44143"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=44143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}