Developing new women and Black leaders

THE FIRST COHORTS OF women and Black members on the pilot Developing Your Leadership Skills programmes have gained the knowledge, skills and confidence to play a bigger role in the union’s regional and national decision-making bodies.

“The aim for UNISON is that we can promote and support women and Black members throughout our structures and throughout the whole of the union,” says Education Officer Sarah Hayes.

The five-month pilots ran over the autumn and winter, with four virtual modules bookended by opening and closing sessions that were held in-person at UNISON Centre.

Both programmes have had significant impact on the members who took part (roughly 10 people on each course), Sarah says.

“We asked participants initially about their confidence, whether they saw themselves as leaders, and what they were planning for themselves in terms of coming on the course,” Sarah says.

“And it didn’t take long before people were surpassing their original plans: we’ve had people getting involved in regional and national structures, people really thinking about their own roles in UNISON and people thinking about their careers.”

Both sets of participants quickly bonded with each other and worked closely together throughout the pilots.

“Both cohorts created fantastic groups within themselves and were really supporting each other –and that’s what we want to maintain,” Sarah says.

Throughout the courses, each participant worked with their own individual supporter, who was on hand to answer questions and provide encouragement.

“By being there throughout the course and beyond, we hope the supporters will be able to make a sustained difference to the participants and hopefully get a lot out of that themselves,” Sarah says.

Learning and Organising Services (LAOS) will be circulating advice about running the programme at regional level after completing the evaluation of the pilots.

“We’ll evaluate what’s worked and what hasn’t worked so we can create templates, guidance and recommendations for the regions to run their own regional development programmes,” Sarah says.

“I think the key thing is creating that opportunity to bring people together, finding fantastic speakers and creating lots of opportunities for discussion.” ✱