Promoting Women's Leadership in Human Services

Women in human services hold up our world in so many ways. They reap the rewards of building relationships; advocating for others; and building a more caring society. But they also carry many of the burdens of society; and can be more vulnerable to burnout. Human service agencies face the challenge of advancing and empowering diverse women within an environment of budget cuts and staffing challenges, where women receive lower pay and are underrepresented in leadership roles.

This seven-hour course includes two 3-hour live online sessions offered via Zoom and 1 hour of self-study, both provided by instructor Jodi Vandenberg-Daves.

Overview

In this seven-hour course, offered over two 3-hour live webinars plus one hour of self-study, you'll reflect upon your professional development and gain tools to help you advance in your career in meaningful ways. You will also learn how to apply tools to develop a diverse and empowered critical mass of women leaders in human service fields, creating work environments where women can bring their values to make their best contributions and use their best talents.

The two class sessions will outline and acknowledge the ways in which organizations need to do better by women, especially women who face extra "intersectional" forms of discrimination based on race or other variables. It will also empower you with tools to develop women's leadership in your workplace (whether or not you identify as a woman). Students will also have a one-hour self-study activity to take home between the two classes to enhance their learning.

Learning Objectives

Day 1:

• Demonstrate an understanding of gender barriers with an emphasis on human services fields, including emotional labor and gender issues in human services fields, unconscious bias, the "caregiver penalty," and the role of intersectional discrimination in diverse women's pathways to leadership advancement.
• Utilize self-reflection and workplace inventory assessment practices to understand workplace advancement and issues of gender and other systems of inequality.
• Identify learning goals related to your own leadership (broadly defined and not necessarily about a particular position).
• Identify one or more areas for potential workplace advocacy around advancing women's leadership.

Day 2:

• Identify several goals for your professional development as a leader.
• Identify tools to help you continue your professional development and meet your professional goals.
• Demonstrate an understanding of a variety of advocacy tools to promote women's leadership.
• Identify ways that organizations can contribute to positive environments that help develop diverse women leaders who can make their voices heard in support of the work done by human service professionals.
• Identify ways that organizations can contribute to positive environments that help develop diverse women leaders who can make their voices heard in support of the work done by human service professionals.