The Women into Non-traditional Training project, run by South Birmingham College, intended to introduce the concepts behind successful enterprise to women.   

Despite the initial difficulties this project faced, there have been some positive outcomes from the enterprise awareness courses run in Druids Heath. The Women into Non-traditional Training and Employment course run at the Dell Meadow centre had some recruitment difficulties. Practical career training wasn’t feasible at the centre, so other non traditional subjects had to be explored. The subject areas that were chosen did not appear to appeal to the local community, which could have contributed to the poor recruitment and attendance of the courses.   

After some consultation with the LSC it was decided to change the activity to 3 employment workshops with a specific emphasis on non traditional jobs and training. These were split into Goal setting and CV writing, Application Form preparation, and Interview Preparation and Job Search. The workshops went ahead with a small number of participants and this seemed to work well. All of the participants ended up with a CV and a better understanding of how to write application forms and what kind of career they wanted to go into. The workshops were also an opportunity to build the confidence of the participants as they had all been out of work for long periods of time and their self esteem was very low.   

The participants were interested in career choices such as plumbing, car maintenance, and Self-employment, all of which are non-traditional. All participants seemed very keen to pursue their choice of non-traditional career, which gave some positive outcomes to the course despite the earlier setbacks.