New trainings for the project “Equal opportunities in getting profession for young mother-students in higher educational establishments” have recently been conducted in eastern Ukraine. On February 10^th and 11^th, the Faculty of Social Pedagogy and Psychology of Zaporizhya National University conducted a training on how to plan and implement the initiative “Family Friendly University.”

On February 12^th and 13^th, the same training was held at V. Lazaryana Dnepropetrovsk National University of Railway Transport. Training participants came from 11 universities and local authorities.

During the trainings, all participating universities reported that they already have some elements of family-friendly infrastructure. However, there is a lack of awareness about these services, and therefore, they are underutilized. In some cases, students and staff are not aware of the services, and in other cases, the operating hours are incompatible with student and staff schedules.

The interactive training enabled participants to role play as consumers of family-friendly services and as heads of structural units of universities. This allowed participants to brainstorm ways of encouraging their universities to address the urgent needs of students and teachers. The training was also relevant to young people who face employment issues, both during their studies and after graduation. Several students proposed the creation of an employment exchange that would allow students, including ones with families, to feel more confident in their career and financial growth.

Many university representatives who work with extra-curricular activities for students were interested to learn about the legal framework that would allow their universities to expand their family-friendly initiatives. They asked about the experience of SumyStateUniversity in this area.

New mother-students who participated in the training asked for regular meetings at universities, with the opportunity to discuss pressing issues related to both the optimal organization of the educational process and to increasing their parental competence. The project team invited everyone to subscribe to the project’s e-mail newsletter, “Learning to be parents and family.”

In total, more than 100 trainees attended the two trainings. Each training was an opportunity to spread the idea of family-friendly initiatives to different populations in the university community and to local authorities. These target populations will form appropriate policies and regulatory frameworks and will also implement these mechanisms and work with relevant departments and student governments in universities.