COMpass

Date

2005/08

Contact

Marco Gabriel

Country

Development Partnership

BEIRA SERRA - Associação de Desenvolvimento

Demand

-Operating hours of family support services that are not suitable to workers with atypical hours -Difficult mobilisation of entrepreneurs in relation to issues involving reconciliation between work and family. -Expensive prices for some reconciliation facilitator services (home management services, child transport, leisure time activities, etc.). -Lack of vacancies for some services and scarcity of alternative services (occasional care of children, help with schoolwork, vacation activities).

Solution

The "Time Centre " model is the result of the experience that tested possibilities of rendering support services to people, family and groups more adapted to the management needs of day to day life. The "Time Centre" concentrates into a single structure complementary solutions (leisure time activities, social interaction centre, take-away restaurant, clothes pressing service, family assistance services) that allow access to a range of responses to daily time management problems, whether at the Centre or at home. The "Time Centre" focuses on Integration, Flexibility, Participation and Innovation, combining services that are adapted to the needs of users with their participation in the management and definition of the operation of the various services, trying new responses to users' needs. The Product "Steps toward Reconciliation - organisational self-diagnosis tool" responds to the needs of the SME's of the municipality of Covilhã in relation to reconciliation between family and professional life. "Steps toward Reconciliation" is considered to be a self-training tool, offering various solutions: (i) allows the user to answer a questionnaire in view of providing a self-diagnosis of the company/organisation's reality, providing some suggestions for implementing measures; (ii) offers a group of promising practices that have already been tested and implemented in other companies/organisations; (iii) provides access to various legislation related to licenses, permits, absenteeism, allowances, bonuses, work time; (vi) offers a group of resources (links, bibliography and other documents) that relevant for understanding the subject matter; (v) as well as feedback from entrepreneurs and workers regarding situations experienced on a daily basis that make it easy or difficult to reconcile family with professional life.

Products

"Time Centre - tailor-made solutions for organising day-to-day life" "Steps toward Reconciliation - Organisational Self-Diagnosis Tool"

Results

The Time Centre helped resolve local problems related to reconciliation, helping access more flexible family support services adapted to the needs of users. The solutions provided were directed at providers of services that support people, families and groups (welfare organisations, charities and other public or private entities), seeking to facilitate introduction of change processes that are capable of stimulating creation of responses that are more adapted to new social needs. Awareness/information actions promoted in conjunction with consulting companies, and entrepreneurial and trade union associations helped demonstrate the practical application and benefits of the product, identifying the need to introduce organisational changes and implementation of measures that promote reconciliation. These changes were made on the basis of instruments and tools that the product "Steps toward Reconciliation" offers.