My blog is about my ULR work and in particular one of the workshops that I deliver. At a UNISON learning event I found out about a workshop named ‘Power to be you’.

The workshop is about building women’s confidence and self-esteem. Supporting women learners to develop their confidence and skills really resonated with me.

The resources, activities and lesson plan for the workshop were excellent and I was very keen to promote the session where I work.

Initially I developed a flyer to promote the workshop and circulated it across the Council in order to gauge interest. I was overwhelmed by the response. Very soon I had a session planned with 15 women learners and had a waiting list with many other learners keen to attend.  

The first session was delivered by a UNISON colleague, Rose Bent who is the Regional Organising and Learning Co-ordinator. Rose’s tutoring style, approach and warmth contributed to the success of the session and I supported Rose so that I could eventually deliver the workshops myself. The learners gave great feedback with comments such as ‘this workshop has made me feel important and empowered’ and ‘every women working for the council should attend this workshop’.

What did occur to us was that it is not only women who may feel that they need support to increase their confidence and so I sent out a flyer across the council to see if any men would be interested. Although not quite as many men responded as the women, I had enough interest to set up a men’s confidence workshop and I had a waiting list too.  

Myself and Rose co-delivered the session and it was very enjoyable. Once the men began to share their experiences and engage with the activities, there was a real buzz in the room. At the end of the workshop we asked the male learners if they would feel comfortable in a similar session for men and women together. There was a mixed response with some men stating that they only attended because it was for men only. One man said it gave him a chance to be away from women (myself and Rose apart) as he worked in a female dominated environment and he really enjoyed time talking to men. A few men stated that they would be fine attending with women present.

With these views on board, my next step will be to invite men and women to attend together. If there is sufficient interest I will plan a session. I can observe the success of the workshop through the level of engagement and the feedback. This feedback will determine if this approach should become the norm for future workshops. At the moment, my personal view is that although I am really committed to gender equality, having delivered the sessions to women only and men only groups, I feel that men and women engage, react and learn quite differently when the topic is a sensitive issue such as confidence.