Dr Emma Bolger

I was interviewed for a French publication looking at the concepts of career showers. For non-French speakers and those aware of the limitations of Google translate, the gist of my comments was that we should be better at celebrating career milestones, in the same way we celebrate pregnancies. Welcome to the Jungle: Career Showers  

A new article I have co-written with Elsa Olaru will be published this month in the Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling (Issue 48).  Our work on this topic is continuing, and we are pleased to announce that we've recently been awarded funding by the UWS-Oxfam partnership to undertake research into the barriers to apprenticeship provision faced by single mothers. Our paper on the career development needs of single parents can be read via this link below: Olaru, E. and Bolger, E. (2022)  Meeting the career development needs of single parents . Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling.  NICEC Journal April 2022: Issue 48

As part of the 16 Days of Action activities at the University of the West of Scotland, I will be presenting a free workshop for career development practitioners on domestic abuse, career guidance and career decision-making. Time and date: 10am, Monday 6th December. Register here to attend:  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/domestic-abuse-and-career-guidance-practice-tickets-215592491947  

Over the past year, throughout the period of being pregnant with and then having my second child, I’ve discovered that very little career development support exists for new or expectant mothers. Perhaps because it is assumed that we don’t want or need it. I would argue that this period is, in fact, when career information advice and guidance interventions should be considered essential. For starters, the assumption is that we are happy in our work, and that we’ve chosen to have children when work is stable, or that we are riding the storm and plan to use maternity leave as an excuse to get out and never return. But women do want to work, indeed have to, around very small children. While financial considerations might be paramount, they should be equally weighted with mothers’ own emotional needs, which, if career is a lifelong process that incudes periods of education, work and caring, we forget are directly related to her career development. Straw poll time, I know, but I have two...

View original post at https://ayrshirecollegeblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/guest-post-emma-bolger-on-tackling-gender-imbalance-in-modern-apprenticeships/ Guest post – Emma Bolger on tackling gender imbalance in Modern Apprenticeships Emma Bolger is National Training Programmes Equality Adviser at Skills Development Scotland where she focuses on equality in Modern Apprenticeships, particularly for young women. We asked Emma to tell us a bit about her job. Here’s what she had to say.  My job is to challenge the belief that there are ‘jobs for boys’ or ‘jobs for girls.’ That’s why it is great to be supporting the Equality Challenge Fund project at Ayrshire College – a positive, dynamic and inspiring campaign aimed at increasing the interest of girls and women in science, technology and engineering apprenticeships, and targeting gender balance in these sectors. Why focus on women? I am often asked the question ‘Why does the focus always seem to be on women?’ There are three re...

In December I attended the Scotland Policy Conferences Keynote Seminar: 'Developing the Young Workforce' - next steps for skills development and apprenticeships in Scotland . The briefing document is now available for purchase and has been distributed to delegates, contacts in government, the Scottish Parliament and other stakeholders. I contributed a short article to the briefing document, which is published below. For reference, a full list of the conference contributors can be downloaded here . There was much discussion at the Keynote Seminar of the need for diversity and consideration of equalities within apprenticeship provision. Reference was made by the Cabinet Secretary and Damien Yeates to the recently launched Skills Development Scotland Equality Action Plan for Modern Apprenticeships. Equalities should be seen to lead the development of apprenticeship provision in Scotland. My specialist area is gender bias in Modern Apprenticeships and for me, it was interesti...