In all Member States, female labour market participation is lower than males’.
It is well known that childbearing, care tasks, conciliation needs hinder women employment. Research has shown that many women
exit the job market after childbirth and that this trend is particularly strong among the more vulnerable segments of female
population (e.g. low educated, low-skilled, migrant).
Low income/low skilled women with small children constitute indeed a large proportion of the beneficiaries of the social care and
welfare services. In order to cope with their requests of help, social professionals need to face peculiar difficult challenges. Therefore,
JUMP will work primarly with social professionals creating innovative methodologies to address the issue of work-family balance
with vulnerable mothers in order to increase their employability.
Social professionals need to:
- answer women pressing requests of income, which in a context of welfare-cuts often means to facilitate their entering or reentering
into the labour market.
- work on women’s employability in order to make them capable to cope with job requests by offering training, guidance, coaching
services.
- tackle issues related to family arrangements and tout court relational inclusions, which often constitute a key issue (often implicit)
hindering labour market participation.
Moreover, in order to perform the intrinsically complex task of responding to unskilled mothers’ request of help, social professionals
need to set up complex and multilayered methods of social intervention such as innovative practices capable to address the social/
emotional/relational roots of the unskilled mothers’ unemployment or inactivity problems. JUMP will offer an opportunity to
develop and test these methodologies.
JUMP aim is, therefore, twofold:
1) it will create a transnational learning network of social professionals, experts and universities from JUMP countries that can allow
the sharing and experimenting of innovative practices of social support, coaching and guidance (first phase);
2) it will provide groups of fragile mothers from JUMP countries with innovative methods of social support tailored on their complex
conciliation’s needs to increase their employability (second phase).