Hello - here at Flinders staff traditionally do not attend voluntary
sessions on harassment / discrimination, but like to go to sessions
on bullying usually because they have been experiencing the behaviour.
Two years ago we revamped our EO Contact Officer network - developed
competencies and an EOCO handbook, had the Executive Deans nominate
them and they get a letter from the VC thanking them for taking on
this very important role, they are expected to remain with the
network for only two years so we get a change over and more people
undertake the training, trained them in legislative and policy
requirements and expected that they would attend 4 workshops a year
where they practiced listening, reflecting, developing options for
complainants through role playing and scenario analysis. This
culminates at the end of each year with a full day refresher on
legislation, grievance policy processes, and helping them to
brainstorm options that complainants could adopt themselves to
address the issue. We also work on education campaigns relevant to
the particular areas - sexuality is big in one school, bullying in
another, racial harassment in another etc.
This year we invited supervisors and Heads of Schools to attend the
EOCO workshops too ("to refresh their complaint handling
capabilities") so that they could get to know the EOCOs and utilise
their skills. Our policy requires supervisors to handle complaints,
and EOCOs to provide information to complainants about what they can
do themselves.
So far it has worked really well. We have had to turn supervisors
away from the workshops and offer repeat sessions. Amazing
turnaround from no one wanting to attend 2 years ago.
I have appointed an external consultant to facilitate the workshops
and the training. That consultant is accredited by our EO
Commission, has had experience in Universities, is an accredited
mediator and has experience in investigating bullying in the
workplace, sex harassment and discrimination so comes with a huge
amount of examples.
As for bullying, we've drafted a new harassment and bullying
statement and are about to embark on an education program using focus
groups to determine whether this new statement will broaden
understanding of the issue. For a staff of 1600 we're using about 20
focus groups with presentations to senior management before and after
the groups. This is a 12 month project.
As an adjunct to the workshops & focus groups we're installing an
on-line harassment/discrimination program that will form part of
induction, supervisor training, and mandatory supervisor modules next
year. This cannot replace face to face engagement of the topic which
will continue to be done by request.
All has been received extremely well by senior management, staff and unions.
Regards, Gillian
>Hello
>
>At Nottingham Trent we are trying to scope a training and education
>programme, aimed at staff, on issues of Harassment and Bullying. I
>am interested to know how other institutions have approached this,
>the sort of models that have been implemented and your perceptions
>of how well these have been received.
>
>Any info gratefully received!
>
>Many thanks
>
>Tara
>
>Tara Bath
>Diversity Development Co-ordinator
>Equality and Diversity Team
>The Nottingham Trent University.
--
>Gillian Lay
>Head, Equal Opportunity Unit
>Flinders University
>GPO Box 2100
>Adelaide, Australia 5001
>Ph: (08) 8201 2876
>Fax: (08) 8201 2845
>http://www.flinders.edu.au/eo_unit
>
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