Government strategies
There are 500,000 women in the UK who want to get back to work. Family commitments are cited as the main barrier to achieving their aims. The Women and Equalities Unit also reports a lack of confidence as one of the main reasons for this statistic.
Many of these women are economically inactive, that is to say that they are out of the labour market but not on benefits; in other words ‘lost’ between the networks of recruitment agencies and support from Job Centre Plus.
Where many of these women can be found every day at a place where they feel comfortable without the stigma of being out of work is at the school gates. By working with local agencies that can help these women with children get back to work, a number of government strategies can be addressed.
• Worklessness: helping women with children to access part-time, flexible jobs that will enable them to balance work with the needs of their families will contribute to the economic regeneration of local communities.
• Inequality: by reaching women at the school gates from all kinds of backgrounds and with a range of experiences, agencies get access to parents who strongly reflect local demographics, be they ethnic minorities, lone parents or any other targeted group.
• Child poverty: by recruiting women to part-time jobs which can be done during school hours, the need to pay for childcare is avoided and so increases household income for many dual and single parent families.
• Extended schools: by helping women to access employment support directly through their children's schools, we are contributing to the government's agenda to provide parents with access to a variety of extended services through their children's schools, including local training and employment advice
• Skill shortages: by connecting employers to experienced, reliable staff (e.g. women coming back to work after having children) employers’ increasingly difficult recruitment problems are resolved.
• Community cohesion: by supporting employers to recruit local women, economic growth within local areas is improved through local employment and regeneration.
Social enterprises like Women Like Us are able to work across voluntary and commercial sectors, and are an increasingly effective method of delivering high-quality, cost-effective public services in innovative ways, led by experts who really understand their operational environment and the people who exist within it.
If you are interested in how Women Like Us could work in your area to fulfil local initiatives and make a sustainable difference to your community, our partnerships team would welcome the opportunity to meet with you and discuss how we can work together. You can contact us by clicking here.