To celebrate the Best Practice winners 2010 – 2011, we will be
running a special series of Best Practice blogs over the coming days.
These articles are written by the clubs themselves, and in many cases
will appear in English and the language of the club. We hope you enjoy
learning about the 2010 – 2011 Best Practice projects and take away
ideas and inspiration for the future!

 

Programme Focus Objective: Assure women’s advancement in management, politics and decision making.  

SI Nottingham work closely with the
Nottingham Women’s Centre on various projects.
This is an open centre for all women to sustain them in their needs for
economic, social and psychological support, particularly in cases of social
exclusion, vulnerability and personal difficulties. For example, domestic violence,
rape, criminal history, long-term unemployment and poor self esteem.

One such project is the course ‘A
gentle introduction into getting that job’. 
SI Nottingham have designed this course to be given over 4 weekly mornings.  It is designed to give learners the
background material and information about job searching, applications and
interviews.  Practical help is given to
assist learners in writing their own CV, and also writing covering letters, and
filling in application forms.  Finally
the participants have the opportunity, after some preparation about interviews,
to participate in mock interviews with other Soroptimists from SI Nottingham
whom they have not previously met.

Numbers of students on each course vary
with an average of 7 to 10 per session. 
Regardless of numbers, the same approach to the course is carried
out.  Usually there are 3 of us in the
classroom.  Class room work on the CV,
application forms and letter aspects is essential, but we aim to carry this out
on an individual basis where possible.
This section of the course usually takes up the first two mornings. On the third morning, we move the students
gradually on to the ideas associated with the interview – discussing some of
the trickier questions which may be asked, talking about body language, what to
wear and other aspects of preparation. 
Two demonstrations of an interview are given by the teachers by way of
role play – one that is definitely NOT the way to conduct an interview, which
usually raises a few laughs, followed by an example of a ‘proper’
interview.  The last week is given over
to  the student’s own mock interview,
with individual assessment and then general assessment by way of group
discussion and feedback.

Underlying this entire course is the
aim of the course teachers to support and give confidence to the
participants.  All sessions start and
finish with some interactive exercise to develop the student’s ability to
contribute to group discussions, and give their own opinions. This is very important for the students, as
for some, confidence in their own ability to go out and get a job is low. Perhaps they have not worked for many years because of raising children, or
they have never had a ‘formal’ job.  The students
really appreciate the certificate they get at the end!

There are some drop-outs on every
course, although one particular course was excellent and all students stayed on to
the end!  Although the course is carried
out in the centre of Nottingham, we believe that transport and crèche costs may
have some bearing on this. It is
therefore proposed for the next course to provide some contribution towards
travel and crèche costs from SI Nottingham funds, and see if that improves the attendance
rate.

The teachers on
the course all feel that something useful is being done, when we see students
gain confidence in only the four mornings of the course.  Assessment forms handed in by the students at
the end of the course are almost always positive.  Our one disappointment is that we never hear
the results of our labours – ie: whether any of
them actually gain a job?

SI Nottingham, UK