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Communication strategy

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The studies related to the efficiency of both programmes and policies, specially social ones, are consistent, in pointing out that their lack of success is related to information problems within the three main groups: a) those designing and defining objects and subjects b) those who execute them and put them in practice and lastly, c) the final destination target . They totally agree in placing information as the key factor hindering the possibilities of reaching success.

Toolbox >> Conceptual materials >> Teaching materials/applications >> Results and impacts

It can be understood then, that success is not to be found so much as a result of an efficiently communicated message and on how much said message has been adjusted to those codes previously shared, but instead, success lies in such a message being able of generating instances of both knowledge exchange and common meeting places which enable the people to transform previously established knowledge. This is specially decisive when the objective of the intervention goes to generate a sustained cultural change as such of adopting the gender perspective as reference and methodological mark and also as a factor of quality and innovation within the policies and institutional practices The starting point of the premise unifying gender and communication should be that people are not passive reception units just receiving messages and acting accordingly after decoding those messages in only one sense. The messages - and in this case the stereotypes and gender marks - are brought back for those same males and females, and they condition the way on how they perceive themselves but these men and women can play an active part accepting or rejecting of to play under the role of activated these messages, they can accept , reject, or reformulate them as well as creating them anew, according to their own interpretation. The counterpart then is that, through the emission of new messages, addressed to revise and to question the previous forceful ones and the stereotyping labels and gender biases can be first identified to be modified later. This leads to revise the role and place of Communication within the training policies going from: understanding it as an exact service - fundamentally tied up to the "selling pitch" of the training and externally contracted - to perceive it as component of a transversal nature, a crucial tool for the management of policies for quality and equity improvement in vocational training . From this conception, the Communication strategy should be coherent and functional to the politics conceptual and methodological axes and of the designed intervention and referring to the group of exchanging practices and instruments of communication specially created to show a new reality (to inform), to question and to revise all previous knowledge (to generate opinion), to modify practices and attitudes (to make decisions). It is the component responsible of disclosing and positioning the IFP and their policies before the diverse target segments and, especially of impacting the promotion of the equality of opportunities, in the review of discriminations and stereotyping labels. To fulfil this role, it is required to know the profiles, expectations and necessities of the targets - be them people or entities - to enable and to value the exchanging instances and to develop strategies and functional products , mainly for communication be them specific or adapted the main reasons for the intervention and to the peculiarities of the diverse target populations related to said intervention. Conceived in this way and from the training policies systemic approach, the Communication strategy acquires a co-ordinating transversal condition: which it acts as part of a whole unit supporting all the activities and products developed by the other components thus ensuring that technically the different modes, the language, the designs, etc. meet all conditions of a distinctive and unanimous discourse, to strengthen the identity of the intervention or the Programme, and also to give guidance centred in the search for "an understanding" between the necessities and the public target best interests. Therefore, it has to be responsible of finding the way and of to establishing the corresponding links so that each activity and each product arriving to its potential targets, do it being fully identified, understood, appropriate and well used. Some examples of the possibilities of the Communication strategy in terms of interrelation among components, roles and contributions within its condition of transversal dimension of the training policies are: Articulation with the setting: co-ordination through the productive and social environment: to orchestrate the needed sensitising actions. Occupational guidance: ranging from taking care of the materials to making the offer known to their targets together with those strategies and actions specifically conceived to guide the activities chosen by beneficiaries, specially low-income women. For this end, the combined work of both components is indispensable. Curriculum development: the perception and the support of the communicational area has to be present from the moment when the title for the occupational profile was conceived, the didactic materials and the contents, and even those actions of sensitization and also training in gender and in the methodologies proposed for the whole personnel. This strategic communicating approach, this conception of communication as a management tool, was the one chosen to be adopted by the FORMUJER Programme to successfully solve the challenge of revising and strengthening the institutional chores so as to incorporate the mainstreaming of gender perspective, to innovate regarding methodologies and practices from the approaches of gender and employability and, simultaneously, to assist in the necessities of low-income women. And it was done by the means of developing two great action lines: Inner strengthening To generate the appropriation of the approaches and the proposals by the institution and their personnel. To be co-ordinated with the remaining components in the elaboration of the communicational materials and in the right strategy for reaching all different populations. To build up both the identity of the Programme and that of the institution as interventions in favour of equity and equality of opportunities. To incorporate the gender perception within the institution policies of communication, both ways inside and outside and strengthen said communicating channel. Extensive and external communication Addressed to: To sensitize the productive sector, the society, the families and even the women on the feminine contributions to the development and also about the removal of gender marks from within the labour environment and the training contexts . To achieve that the co-ordination is perceived among what is offered from the IFP and those realities and demands from those potential users (women, families, productive sector, even the IFP personnel, community, etc.). To inform, to promote and to spread the training offer. To summon the feminine participation in the training processes, showing both training and the Programme as the answer to their needs and opportunities. This action line includes a multimedia campaign about the equality of women's opportunities within the technical vocational training addressed to different users: women, IFP, workers and, especially, the managerial private sector.

 

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