Feedback from North-South Event
The Edge, Belfast, (July 5th 2005)
The North-South event was held in Belfast on July 5th 2005, and was attended by 13 DPs from the North and 16 DPs from the South.
Also in attendance were representatives from the Managing Authorities and Support Structures in both parts of the island, as well as SEUPB, the Northern Ireland NTN Chair and a representative from the Equality Authority.
The DPs were grouped onto 7 tables, and were left to discuss matters of interest and possible avenues for future North-South collaboration and interaction. The following is a brief summary of the feedback form each of the tables.
Table 1: Diversity Works I
- How to engage employers effectively
- How to convince them that there is something in it for them
- Getting to the right level of the company – e.g. HR manager
- CSR now becoming popular – but how serious are employers about engaging?
- What do you actually change in the long-term?
- Short-termism i.e. funding runs out just as work is getting off the ground properly
- Temptation to engage in the numbers game
- What will be left when EQUAL finishes?
- How to engage target groups
- How to motivate/entice in order to get people to sign up
- Hooks/attractions becoming harder to create
- How to ensure that DP members are fully committed and engaged
Table 2: Diversity Works II
- Business case for diversity (for partners and for employers)
- Cultural change needed in organisations
- How will North-South activity actually work for DPs not signed up formally in a TCA (time, money issues)
- Recognition of the "2peace" dimension
- Exploration of how to link the Thematic Networks North and South
- Exploring the difficulties inherent in the dynamics of partnerships
Table 3: Equal Opportunities
- Marginalising of equality issues – should not be an add-on
- Cultural and attitudinal issues
- Dominant working model: has not given space for providing role models for women in middle and senior management
- Need to explore:
i. Men in caring professions
ii. Women in leadership positions in Trades Unions
iii. Work-Life Balance – absence of penalty clause - Securing buy-in by
- Intervening at a senior level
- Making the business case - Recommendations for future meetings
- More informal meetings
- Space in meetings to allow partners to do TCA business
- Opportunity to hear what's working well
Table 4: New target groups/new challenges
- Raising Awareness: Employers, Communities Service Providers; Challenging Perceptions
- Evaluation – ensuring document of value which will support policy changes and practice
- Skill Development – Participants and wider community in relation to knowledge of client groups
- Mentoring, Capacity Building, Empowerment, Advocacy.
Table 5: Enterprise Creation
- Specific training and mentoring supports
- Must be relevant and effective
- Based on needs of the target group
- Remember that words like ‘training' and ‘education' can be off-putting - Access to finance
a. High-risk lending
b. Bringing mainstream and micro-finance providers on board - Gender issues
- Higher participation by males traditionally
- Participating in networks
- Professional supports
- Regular supports
- Effective engagement - Supporting innovative business development
- Not causing displacement
- Avoiding businesses that are in saturated markets
Table 6: Educational development
- Different approaches being used to implement supported education that empowers people towards supported employment
- mentoring in supportive education, leading to employment
- Curriculum development: alternatives for people with disabilities, travellers etc within mainstream provision
- Funding and legal framework : how do the following affect mainstream provision:
- Peace II
- Section 75
- Human Rights legislation
Table 7: New sectors
Research to identify structural barriers: there was long discussion about structural barriers for project beneficiaries. In relation to lone parents in NI this took the form of complex and patchy welfare structures, benefits for lone parents were difficult to understand and access. The Gingerbread project intended to carry out extensive research to map all benefits and interventions / projects available to lone parents to establish the effectiveness of individual initiatives as well as the overall/ combined impact of all programmes aimed at this target group. The research will also identify gaps in provision and make recommendations for policy development. The Tallagh Partnership project reported that professional structures also formed a barrier for their target group in relation to career progression and development in the caring sector. For instance, the nursing profession in the South is a well organised and very power full professional structure with "ownership" of training and accreditation routes within the caring profession. Encouraging the nursing profession to support the development of training and accreditation routes for care work jobs / employments currently considered low status and not professional was difficult, but necessary if improved career progression for the target group was to be achieved.
The quality of work experience opportunities: All projects at the table reported on approaches to developing work experience opportunities and strategies for encouraging employers to engage with projects. All projects agreed that this was a particularly challenging aspect of project work, and getting quality / appropriate work placement opportunities was particularly difficult to achieve.
Employer attitudes to flexible / inclusive employment practices: All projects at the table recognised the importance of dissemination and awareness raising work with employers to promote flexible and inclusive employment practice. The Beyond Caring project reported that there was still a lot of resistance among employers in NI to job-sharing, flexitime, e-working / working from home and term time working, practices which were very necessary to cerate accessible employment opportunities for their target group.
Mainstreaming: NI projects felt that the MPG mechanism developed in the South, was a good model that could be adopted by the MA in the North.
There was a detailed discussion around the experiences of round 1 projects in relation to mainstreaming. It was felt that a closer examination of where mainstreaming was not so successful should be undertaken and the learning from this more widely disseminated to inform the development of mainstreaming strategies for round 2 projects.
Pat Donnelly (July 22nd 2005)
| back to top |
