The Partnership consists of Partners from France ("Elargissement des choix professionnels des femmes sur la communaute de commune"), Poland ("Work and dignity life for women victims of violence") and from Spain ("Flora").

The common interests and the methodology to be applied by the different partners of the Transnational Project TRANS-CONCILIATION can be summarized as followed:

Common interests:

• Work is focused on labour skills of social, personal and professional development for women in general and groups of women with special difficulties of access to labour market: unemployed, victims of violence, subject to a penalty of restriction of freedom
• Vocational information, counselling and guidance services during the whole integration process
• Personal and professional empowerment measures for women, with special attention to groups in risk of social exclusion
• To promote vocational diversification and to increase women’s presence in occupations where they are underrepresented
• Mechanisms for the assessment and transfer of good practice
• Approaches concentrated on relevant key actors networking where public authorities will play an important role
• To promote female cooperation with the aim to improve women’s labour market integration possibilities as well as employment sustainability
• Transnationality is considered a key element for the transfer of experience and best practice among women
• Tackling vertical and horizontal segregation of women in the labour market for a better local development
• Making up for the delay in the territorial system in understanding and accompanying the rapid change of women employment with a change in the organisations and in the setting up of services
• Fostering women entrepreneurship
• Rising awareness on corporate social responsibility through gender point of view.

Methodology:

• Analysis and comparison of different local situations, problems, systems and policies
• Exchange of knowledge, experience and best practice
• Exchange of innovative ideas and solutions for the implementation of shared methodologies
• DPs aim at developing the transnational work plan according to the following principles:
  - Empowerment: all national partners of DPs (from key actors to beneficiaries) will have the opportunity to participate in the design and evaluation of planned activities
  - Competence: people responsible for the implementation of each task will be those who have better possibilities of producing added value
  - Consensus: the implementation, development, monitoring and evaluation of transnational activities will be managed by a transnational steering committee with a balanced representation of partners
  - Participation: previous transnational experience says that cooperation provides added value when it means working on common methodologies, tools and products and not just a transfer of experience between DPs (although it brings also great benefits) because it does not fulfil completely the EQUAL transnational objective of learning, transferring and adopting other solutions to reduce female discrimination risks as it is the case of this TCA. Therefore, the transnational work programme includes specific cooperation activities in working groups.

The common objectives of the DPs:

• To promote the exchange of best practice, experience and methodologies in those areas that represent an added value for each national project:
  - IT literacy
  - Design of tailor-made career paths considering gender and equality issues.
  - Techniques to promote equal employment opportunities for men and women.
  - Monitoring of women entrepreneurs applying gender approaches.
  - Innovative experiences related to work-life balance promotion.
  - Female networks.
  - Psychosocial complementary support for women collectives with special difficulties, facilitating their process of labour insertion.
• To enhance the exchange of technical staff and project managers with the aim to foster new learning situations in other european contexts
• A resources network based on ICT to support an efficient and easy access to information of the transnational and national projects to all users, national DP partners and beneficiaries
• Dissemination at all levels (local, regional, trans-regional, national and european) and transfer of results and best practice of transnational activities to employment policies
• To promote the exchange of experience, methods and know-how about setting-up cooperative firms
• Cooperation in the design of the common monitoring and evaluation system including quality and gender issues
• Design of an equal opportunities dissemination tool from an european point of view, that is, considering the experience and methods of DPs, aimed at employers and human resources managers
• To capitalise good practice related to active female participation
• To disseminate and ensure the transfer of the above mentioned good practice with the aim to made widely applicable the participation of women in the process of professional development with equal opportunities
• To increase the value, within Community policies, of the role local communities – considered as a chain of expertise, skills and resources
• Play in developing equal opportunities between women and men in the labour market. The role of local communities in the development of gender equality in the labour market, which is moreover foreseen by a number of Community programs, will become the core of all the actions included in the TCA
• To strengthen gender mainstreaming in local development policies
• To analyse cultural models in partner countries as regards women’s participation in the labour market, paying attention to the inequality of access to the resources, the distribution and use of time of women victims of violence and those who have risk of social exclusion ( e.g. prisoners)
• To raise awareness, in the local culture, on gender issues.

The products/deliverables foreseen:

• A Best Practice Guide on work-life balance as a result of national and transnational exchanges of beneficiaries, project staff, managers, policy makers, etc. It will be presented during a Transnational Seminar about Equal Opportunities
• Creation of a self-diagnosis tool to make the assessment of companies’ and public authorities’ situation in terms of gender approaches and equal opportunities
• Common monitoring and evaluation system for transnational activities
• The increase of education quality and the consultation services offered by the AD
• The definition of the evaluation mechanism which measure efficiently the achievements and difficulties of the project
• Creation of a website to get to know the resource introduced by other countries of the EU for a better access of women
• Creation of a transnational hall and organisation of thematic meetings. For the transfer of results and good practices of the project to the politicians of employment
• The capacitation of the partners through the knowledge of new work formulas and focuses to achieve equality of opportunities, first of all respecting the mechanisms which facilitate the conciliation of family life and work and the inclusion of women collectives with special difficulties of access to labour market.

Added value on the strategy and intended results of each of the DPs involved

The TCA will provide added value to the national DPs of all partners. The Start of the transnacional actions and the subsequent evaluation and succession can give new knowledges to the participating partners and examples of performance to their respective areas of aplication. Espacially by studying the well developed practises from partners of other member countries of the transnational group.

ADDED VALUE

• New ways to tackle work-life balance
• To highlight the responsibility of companies in developing positive actions plans
• Exchange and discussion at a transnational level will stress the critical points of European and national policies and therefore could give a valid strategic contribution
• The project gives an european dimension to strategies and activities of national projects and promotes labour mobility and trade EU wide
• Qualitative improvement of national partnerships. Synergies and new common areas of interest can benefit DPs and their target groups because the project will promote participation of a wide range of institutions (local and regional authorities, universities, training centres and career services)
• Exchanges could lead to formal cooperation agreements beyond the project
• An increase in the beneficiaries’ employability, productivity, motivation and internationalisation, removal of inequalities and improvement of their skills and possibilities of employment / business promotion, specially for women of the most disadvantaged collectives
• A conceptual reference framework of the policies experimented on a local scale, which is focused on the role local communities play in the development of equal opportunities between women and men and support women role in the local economic frame. This conceptual framework allows enriching this experimentation and at the same time it guarantees their continuity both at local level and at regional, national and European level.

INTENTED RESULTS

• Best Practice Catalogue to support local (and other levels) decision-makers to implement resources and programmes related to equal opportunities and work-life balance
• The transnational version of the self-diagnosis tool will be a specific contribution for project staff and will be very useful for a wide range of institutions
• Learning and cooperation opportunities through beneficiaries and project managers’ exchanges at a transnational level, particularly on methods and best practice to set-up cooperative firms
• Quality increase in training and guidance services provided by DPs’ partners. Specifically, the services directed to women in risk or social exclusion situation
• Definition of evaluation mechanisms to assess progress and problems that may arise
• Transfer of results and good practice to have an impact on employment policies (or at least those focused on the target areas) in thematic seminars
• Partners’ empowerment in relation with equal opportunities and work-life balance through new approaches and methods
• The project foresees the transnational cooperation as an important and integrated part of the national project. In particular, the added value cooperation is related to the following opportunities:
  - to integrate different points of view for the development of equal opportunities between women and men and women role in the local development.
  - to jointly develop activities on the fundamental themes of the project.
  - to jointly elaborate methodologies to transfer the experiences already implemented.

(extract from the TCA)

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