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Mainstreaming
Equal-Agender
The
mainstreaming phase of the Agender project is now under way. There are
four mainstreaming objectives:
-
to
disseminate Agender Pilot activity to Children’s Centres and Early Years
and Childcare Teams locally and nationally, highlighting good practice
in non gender traditional employment and information advice and guidance
within Children's Centres – thus providing a framework for the
implementation and planning of successful delivery.
-
to
have an impact on employment of women in non gender traditional roles
and share resources and good practice developed to support the
employment of women in these areas.
-
to
share good practice and experience of Agender pilot training programmes
and encourage mainstreaming of these schemes.
-
to
share effectiveness of the marketing strategy developed to attract men
into childcare.
The
target audience for this work is wide and will include Children’s Centres,
Early Years and Childcare Teams, Local and National government, Policy
makers, EU Commissioners, European partners, Jobcentre Plus, Trade Unions,
Employer Groups, Sector Agencies, Training Providers, Learning and Skills
Councils, Funding Bodies and Childcare Information Bureaux including
Childcare providers. Mainstreaming outputs will include:
-
disseminating the reports compiling and evaluating research data into
women’s training experiences
-
sharing evaluation reports on the outcomes of Agender activity
concerning the effectiveness of new
-
information, advice and guidance tools piloted through Children’s
Centres
-
the recommendations from the Men into Childcare pilot
-
the experience of transnational working collaboration
-
dissemination of the research activity undertaken by Agender
-
a
variety of large and small dissemination events to different audiences
locally, nationally and transnationally.
The
Agender project delivered its first mainstreaming event, “You Can Too”,
in March 2007 at the Burlington Hotel in Birmingham. This event was well
attended and demonstrated the benefits of a diverse workforce through the
various speakers and events. We were joined by Nina Skorupska, a director
with Npower, and Diane Youdale, formerly Jet from Gladiators, who wowed
delegates with her motivational workout. A short video clip of the event
will soon be available on the web site.
 The
Agender team (Verity Baker, Jenny Dunstall & Leon Edman) assisted by key
partners attended Employment Week in Brussels in June and were able to
showcase the project activity to a wide European audience. An evening
reception was held at the West Midlands in Europe office in the evening,
with guest Liz Lynne, MEP for the West Midlands region. More events are
planned and the first of these will be the Ecotec dissemination event on
September 10th & 11th 2007, at the Birmingham International Convention
Centre. There will be a breakfast meeting with MEPs on 7th November in
Brussels and Agender will be appearing on 11th December at the
second Adjust the Balance Social Footprints Symposium, also at the ICC.
A
new working group attached to the Birmingham Early Years Children’s
Centres Steering Group has been set up with the remit to take forward some
of the Agender development and Jobcentreplus employment advice initiatives
within all Birmingham and Solihull Children’s Centres. The work will
highlight the good practice in non-gender traditional employment
information advice and guidance within Children’s Centres. The Employment,
Training and Advice working group is an example of mainstreaming in action
as it will continue to offer support and information to parents through
the development of Children’s Centres services beyond the life of the
Agender project.
A
toolkit is currently in development which will contain copies of all the
various Agender DVDs, a final project evaluation report and information on
all the research and activity undertaken by the project. We hope to
produce 1000 of these for use at dissemination events. Some summer packs
have also been put together for distribution at the Surestart Summer
roadshows, being run by Birmingham Childcare Information Bureau, to
include information leaflets for parents, beach balls and bags.
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