Juggling Motherhood and Profession Erasmus Project

Project Title

Juggling Motherhood and Profession

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Gender equality / equal opportunities; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Project Summary

In all Member States, female labour market participation is lower than males’. Data also show a direct correlation between childbearing, care tasks, conciliation and employment: half of the women population exits the work market after child birth. Within such framework, for the more vulnerable and poverty-stricken female segments of the population (e.g. low income, low educated, dealing with socio-economic and cultural issues, sole head of the household), the unemployment situation can be further exacerbated, particularly in case of women with children aged 0-10.To respond to unskilled mothers’ request of help to find a job, social professionals working in public and private establishments need to set up complex and multilayered methods of social intervention: in first place they need to be able to rely on innovative practices capable to address the social/emotional/relational roots of the unskilled mothers’ unemployment or inactivity challenges. The JUMP partnership focuses on Southern Europe (I, ES, GR) and one South-Eastern European country (HR). These are countries where the female position in the labour market is particularly weak.
JUMP has therefore developed (PHASE 1) coaching/training tools addressed to social professionals to assist them in their daily activities with women belonging to disadvantaged groups.These modules, have been designed taken into account existing best practices that have been reviewed at the beginning of the project.
JUMP partners have large experience in working with women employability, training and assistance. Its’ furthermore worth mentioning how an active participation of social professionals from all partner institutions has been reached, both in the modules design and in the testing phases (see below).
The tools developed within JUMP have allowed social professionals to better identify recipients’ recurrent underlying challenges (parenting issues, socio/cultural/linguistic hindrance to labour market integration, etc.) as well as recipients’ valuable assets that can be mobilized to boost their capabilities (relational capital, skills acquired through motherhood, potentialities related to their socio/cultural specificities, etc.). Learning modules developed in PHASE 1 have been used (PHASE 2) by a large sample social professionals from Italy, Spain, Greece and Croatia to develop individualized coaching paths addressed to disadvantaged mothers (ca 160) with the aim to: increase their resiliency skills; activate processes of self-evaluation; provide relational assets and information to be used as capability boosters; provide skills and self-reflective capacities to re-arrange care tasks, when needed, in order to achieve labour market outcomes. Outreach activities have been developed throughout the whole project, through various information workshops, many international and national events, including high-impact regional conferences (in Italy, Croatia and Greece) and by interviewing policy makers.
Parallel to this dissemination activities have been made through videos, leaflets and various information materials.
In the various activities described, JUMP has seen the participation of different types of organizations as research institutions, welfare providers, no profit organizations dealing with adult training and assistance, social profit organizations. JUMP will exert a significant impact both within partner organizations (that will adopt the developed working approach within their regular working practices) and in the different stakeholder communities thanks to the partnership close links and outreach capacity with a broad range of players. A number of endorsement letters received witness the long-term benefit of the project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 230640 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ufficio Pio della Compagnia di San Paolo – ONLUS & Country: IT

Project Partners

• CESI- Centar za edukaciju, savjetovanje i istrazivanje
• KENTRO MERIMNAS OIKOGENEIAS KAI PAIDIOU
• ETA BETA S.c.s.
• EEO Group S.A.
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO
• FUNDACION SENARA