Work matters: To the top

An innovative training project carried out in Leicestershire demonstrates that with the right support, more women can become confident managers and potentially go on to run their own businesses.

The Women Leading Childcare Project, which ran between 2006 and 2007, was funded by Leicestershire Learning and Skills Council and steered by a multi-agency group including trainers from Hempsall Consultancies and officers from Leicester City and Leicestershire County Councils.

The aim was to address the barriers holding women back and deliver a solid strategy that would help them to gain qualifications and skills.

At the close of the project in 2007, many of the 40 women involved had achieved additional responsibilities in their own settings. Many had taken on extra duties, including external liaison with other agencies, marketing roles, administration responsibilities, childcare planning and internal training.

The project also succeeded in supporting significant career movement. For example, two women who were registered childminders, now own and jointly manage their own nursery; another became a nursery manager who set up an after-school club and now runs it; one woman, who was the manager of a nursery, is now a regional manager; and another who was a creche and playgroup assistant has now become a deputy playgroup leader and manager.

A plan of action

Beverley Hutt had been a registered childminder for 15 years when she was recruited to the project in May 2006. Her aspirations were to gain a higher level qualification to allow her to move up into a management position.

During this time she achieved an NVQ level 3 in Early Years Care and Education and attended child protection, professional development training, and first aid for childcarers.

'As a lone parent working long hours from Monday to Friday I found attending courses and studying at home very difficult,' she says. 'Following recruitment to the project I attended an orientation session. This identified the range of training opportunities and career paths available in childcare for leadership and management roles and this helped me match this with my individual skills, knowledge, experience and aspirations.'

A project team member completed an Initial Learning Plan with Beverley in July 2006.

'This supported me to begin to think about my personal and professional goals and aspirations, and how the barriers to achieving these could be addressed. Mentoring sessions gave me individual support to identify an appropriate course to meet my needs within my time-frame.

'It was the leadership and management training workshops provided as part of this project that enabled me to recognise my own skills and abilities and become confident that a management role was achievable for me.'

In August 2006 Beverley was given the opportunity to buy a sessional playgroup. The following May, she attended the Introduction to Leadership and Management course delivered by Aspire at Loughborough College. Her future plans include studying for a degree and gaining Early Years Professional status.

Expanding an existing job role

Kersty Shann was another participant whose ambition was to set up and manage her own setting. As a part-time manager of a nursery she faced a number of barriers, including having to find childcare for her own young child and lack of time and money to support study.

Kersty had 17 years' experience in childcare, an NNEB, NVQ level 2 in Team Leading, qualifications in first aid and food hygiene and training in child protection and health and safety.

The project's recruitment process, orientation course and initial learning plan prompted her to enroll on an NVQ level 4 in Management delivered by Exponential Training and Assessment. The business understanding this gave her has enabled her to progress in her current job role and she has taken on additional responsibility for finance and marketing.

'During the project, I found the workshops dealing with leadership and assertiveness really informative and inspiring,' says Kersty.

'Mentoring and support sessions have helped me to achieve a balance between working, caring for my family and studying for a level 4 qualification. I have been able to access costs for childcare for my own child while I have been studying, as well as qualification costs.'

Staff cover essential

Important lessons have been learned in Leicestershire from the project. James Hempsall, director of Hempsall Consultancies, says, 'The most significant challenge is that over half of the women on the project worked more than 37.5 hours a week, and most worked between 41 and 50 hours. This has an obvious impact on time and motivation to study.

'If we are going to achieve a highly qualified workforce we need a serious approach to resourcing staff cover time, and we need to provide everything possible to remove all the other barriers to do with cost and accessibility.'

Further information

Hempsall Consultancies is an independent provider of training, research and consultancy for everyone working with children, young people and families, with a specialism in the early years, childcare, extended services and children's centres sector. For information see www.hempsallconsultancies.com. STEPS TO LEADERSHIP

The Women Leading Childcare project focused on a range of training initiatives that included:

- Providing guidance to find appropriate and accessible qualifications

- The development of personalised learning programmes to record women's prior learning and experience, learning goals, employment aspirations

- Underpinning training such as self-esteem, confidence building, assertiveness and introductory leadership and management training

- Mentoring and peer support groups

- The availability of key skills training and additional support for those with English as a second language

- Providing resources such as books and laptop computers

- Covering the costs of childcare, staff cover and travel

- Supporting women to achieve leadership and management roles

- Supporting women to achieve leadership and management qualifications at levels 3, 4 and 5.