A CONFIDENCE-building scheme to help women prepare for promotion, raise self esteem and improve their skills in the workplace is to be adopted by Blackburn with Darwen Council. The council's personnel service committee were last night (Thursday) expected to give the go-ahead to run a three month pilot scheme of the internationally recognised Springboard programme.

It is hoped that through Springboard more women will choose to seek positions at management level where they are currently under-represented. While the council workforce is roughly made up of equal numbers of men and women, the greater number of female staff are concentrated in the lower grades.

Springboard is designed by women for women and enables female staff to improve relationships within the workforce, develop more positive attitudes in work and generally be more professional. Jo Lane, principal training and equal opportunities officer is one of two members of council staff who have completed training and are licensed with Springboard.

She said: "This scheme has been very successful across the country and even as far afield as Australia and India.

It goes to show how committed we are to our female staff who are an important part of our workforce.

It gives them the opportunity to undertake a training course that otherwise would not be available to them." The scheme is scheduled to run between January and March 1998.

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