In addition to our national Creative Employment Options and Empower3D, our Atlantic Regional Office offers a number of unique employment programs in New Brunswick.

Through our Job Focus program, we provide Vocational Rehabilitation Services which are utilized by WorkSafeNB Workforce Re-entry Case Managers.

“Typically, when someone’s injured, they try to put them back to their previous employment. If they can’t find that, they try to find a different position within the same employer,” explains Beverly Grasse, Atlantic Regional Director for Employment Programs and Services. “And if they can’t do that, then those are the ones that have the complex needs usually that they need to come to us to figure out what can they do to return to work or whether they can return to work.”

The program provides a wide range of services including assessments, transferable skills analysis, resume and interview preparation, and identifying educational and upskilling opportunities. It’s up to our help participants find work and assess if they can return to work or if they need long-term disability. Services are personalized based on each participant’s needs — some may just need help with their resume, while others may need a wider variety of assistance.

With tight deadlines — each participant has a return-to-work plan set by WorkSafeNB with strict timelines — that need to be met, and the importance of assessments made by our team, it requires a lot of trust from WorkSafeNB.

“It’s taken us a long time to build that trust with our case managers. They put a lot of trust in us to make high cost decisions,” Beverly shares. “The people we have working in the program take it very serious, because you’re working with someone that at the end of 13 weeks and they don’t have a job, they may lose their house, they may lose everything they have.”

Participants in Job Focus can also rent laptops and assistive technology while in the program.

Our Atlantic Regional Office also operates Employment Assistance Services in Fredericton, Bathurst, and Edmundston, as well as the Community Employment Centre at WorkingNB in Fredericton, which offers walk-in job search assistance, and Client Supports, which delivers funding for workplace supports.

This article originally appeared in our 2025/2026 Annual Report(new window).