Policy Development
Introduction and Context
Train 2000 have been involved in the development and delivery of innovative and award winning women's enterprise and economic development interventions since 1996. Delivery success has highlighted, that in order to achieve our goals of increasing the number, quality and diversity of women enterprises depends in part on changing the views and behaviour of a range of private, public and third sector institutions. The development of a coherent and deliverable Government policy and strategy has been a primarily consideration for Train 2000 in this social accounting reporting period. Train 2000 however, recognise that Government policy and strategy will not succeed unless it has the support of a number of key stakeholders, in particular: service users, service providers and funding bodies.
Approach
Train 2000's approach to this overall objective has been multi pronged, as we have sought to:
- Provide clear evidence that there are issues and problems in terms of mainstream enterprise service design, accessibility, gender sensitivity, and diversity profiles.
- Share the success stories of sustainable women's enterprises thereby contributing to the compilation of a strong evidence base that gender specific models work in terms of addressing current barriers faced by would be and developing women entrepreneurs.
- Contribute to the development of robust infrastructure and strategic partnerships, which raise awareness and support the creation of social enterprises as an entrepreneurial option for women.
- Provide leadership and vision in the creation and sustainability of gender specific support infrastructure, which raise standards and levels of service provision for women entrepreneurs and act as on going policy influencer at a regional, national and European level.
Principles
In order for Train 200 to conduct our policy-influencing role in a more systematic manner we have developed the following working principles in this accounting period.
- Maintaining Focus
- By making the links across government goals and policies.
- Reality Checking
- By not assuming that information leads to awareness or indeed awareness leads to action.
- Priority Targeting
- By assessing who our audience are and the need for message refinement to effectively reach that audience.
- Communicating Creatively
- By using variety of methods such as testimony from women entrepreneurs as to what their needs are, their experiences and the barriers they face.
- Network Segmentation
- By goal directed networking which will give our core message the most coverage and provide the greatest opportunity for learning from good practice.
- Learning the Lessons
- By constantly reviewing our approach to policy influencing and planning in the necessary resources that are required to it successfully.
Delivery
Train 2000 deliver on influencing policy objective by:
- Gathering information, highlighting issues and identifying evidence based solutions to disseminate appropriately
- Representing Train 2000's view on women economic development issues through, in particular, producing policy documents and responding to policy consultation, participating in policy think tanks, conferences, seminars and exhibitions.
- Networking with a range of appropriate organisations and government bodies, formally and informally for example participating in appropriate boards, steering groups and engaging in a range of activities.
Train 2000 have been involved in a number of key development within the field of women's enterprise and economic development.
International Sharing Of Best Practice
Within this accounting period Train 2000 team members have been actively involved in a number of awareness raising activities, which had a truly international flavour.
Mayo County Enterprise Board, Ireland
Train 200 hosted a 2 day visit to Liverpool by team from the county enterprise team. The purpose was to share practice in the delivery of effective enterprise support services.
AWE Equal, Sweden
Train 2000 led a one-day seminar on social policy and the UK Women's Strategic Enterprise Framework, focusing on its transferability in the Swedish context.