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Children’s Centres are part of the government’s intention to provide co-ordinated, widespread and comprehensive services for young children and families. One of Agender’s key objectives is to develop support centres which combine family support such as childcare and health services with advice about jobs, careers and training. This should be delivered by advisers who are experts in higher level and non-traditional careers. The Agender project aims to achieve this through its work with pilot children centres. These are located in some of Birmingham’s most deprived areas including Aston, Kingstanding, Saltley, Bartley Green, Washwood Heath and Allens Croft. Recruitment to the majority of Agender’s taster courses and programmes will be through Children’s Centres in order to target those women with multiple barriers to training and employment. Activity which has grown from discussion within the Children’s Centre Sub-group includes;
The Children’s Centre Sub-group is chaired by Aggie Kent and Ray Goodwin. Aggie is Community Involvement Development Co-ordinator at Surestart Saltley and Ward End Children’s Centre and provides valuable input as a representative of Children’s Centres. Ray is Funding and Development Manager of Birmingham Settlement and has extensive experience of working with voluntary and employment organisations. Innovative Activity: § Individual Advancement Programme The Employers Sub-Group is chaired by Claire Hardwick, who is an Area Operations Director at Pertemps People Development Group (PPDG). Claire has been involved in the Core and Sub-Group level of the Agender project, as well as being the lead contact on several Agender linked projects and has considerable experience in managing and developing multi agency, multi sector partnerships. The Employers Sub-Group consists of representatives from private and public sector intermediary organisations as well as employers. Key organisations involved in the Employer sub-group are JobcentrePlus, Connexions, Birmingham & Solihull LSC, the Building Health Hub, the Family Housing Association, the BBC and University of Central England. The mix of representatives in this group brings An idea stemming from the Employers Sub-Group, which has been piloted under the Agender project, is the women only Film School Project. The project aimed to address the issue of job segregation and gender pay inequality and worked with employers from the media sector. It aimed to create a working ethos that offered support and encouragement to women partaking in the Film School within a two week part-time course. The project was a great success, with two participants going on to complete placements with the BBC. Innovative activity: · Men into Childcare· Film School 2· DVD for employers· Family Housing Association Women into ConstructionThe Training Sub-Group consists of representatives from Higher and Further Education, as well as private sector bodies. By bringing together educational and training organisations in this way, innovative project ideas can be tabled and carried through as part of the Agender Pilot. Through the development of tailored learning programmes, women can be assisted into non-traditional jobs. Several of the programmes already underway have stemmed from ideas presented at this Sub-Group. These include construction tasters, a horticulture course and the fork lift truck driving sessions, as well as sports coaching and supporting women into non-traditional roles at professional level. The proposed projects will act to form structured and professional relationships with the newly developed Children’s Centres and will further promote their work in delivering accredited training to parents and families. It is expected that there will be around 100 beneficiaries from activity relating to the Training Sub-Group. Bournville College has been heavily involved in the Agender project from its inception, with its representative Maggie Dilloway being involved at Core and Sub-Group level, as well as being the lead contact on several projects linked to Agender. Maggie’s degree and research career have focused upon gender and equality issues within society and the family. She has undertaken a variety of research projects relating to women, ethnic minority participation, and gender and work issues, some of these as part of the Agender project. Maggie has undertaken a lengthy piece of research which involved interviews with women currently in non-traditional gender roles. The aim was to establish the factors that enabled these choices. There was also a second piece of research which focused on the attitudes of women from minority groups, in particular, mothers and lone parents towards non-gender traditional employment.
Innovative activity: · Mini BICCS Female Sports Coaching· Fork Lift Truck Training· Women Into Non-Traditional Employment Training Package· Women in Enterprise· Women Into Non-Traditional Work· Community HorticultureCopyright © Equal Agender Partnership, 2006 |
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