The Springboard Consultancy (SBC), an international training company, based in the UK, specialising in addressing women’s development issues, is presenting its range of development programmes to members of the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) at their annual conference, being held at the University of Warwick on 2^nd and 3^rd September.

Sheffield-based AGCAS is the professional body for careers and employability professionals working with higher education students and graduates as well as prospective entrants to higher education. Among other things, AGCAS promotes standards for ensuring excellence in service delivery, and – as on 2^nd and 3^rd September – delivers training, development and networking opportunities and events.

Liz Willis, Joint-CEO at SBC, said, “Having presented our programme offerings – and demonstrated them by running two well received workshops – last week in Cardiff, at the annual conference of the International Association of Women in Police (IAWP), we’re now focusing on the needs of women students.

“SBC’s Springboard development programme enables women – from all backgrounds, ages and stages of their lives – to identify the practical and realistic steps they want to take to make a better world for themselves at work, home and in their communities, while building the practical skills and confidence to take these steps,” said Liz. “This programme is our popular flagship – not only in use with women in the police, but also with women from a wide range of backgrounds all over the world.”

Liz Willis, of The Springboard Consultancy.

Delivered through a network of licensed trainers, the Springboard programme has been used by over 230,000 women in 43 countries, to date. Moreover, the Springboard programme enables employers to develop staff to their fullest potential and is often a key component in any Diversity, Inclusion and/or gender initiatives.

“At the AGCAS event, we’ll be focusing on our new Sprint programme for women students,” Liz continued. “Research by the Oxford University Careers Service revealed that women graduates fail to get as prestigious and financially rewarding jobs as their male contemporaries, so we’ve developed Sprint to address the issues that help to close this gap and end the disparity.

“Many women use the Sprint programme to help them focus on their studies at university, achieving results such as improved visibility and effectiveness in tutorials, better time management, less study stress, a boost in confidence and self-esteem. They also use Sprint to sharpen their career goals, raise their aspirations, explore possibilities and take advantage of the work shadowing and coaching often offered by the programme’s corporate sponsors.

“In addition to helping them in their work careers, participants in the Sprint programme tend to find it also helps them to achieve results in their personal lives – such as sorting out difficult relationships, improving fitness and gaining a better study/life balance,” added Liz.