The project "BOYS IN CARE – Strengthening Boys to pursue Care Occupations (BiC)" - JUST/2015/RGEN/AG/ROLE/9249 is implemented from April 2017 to September 2019 in Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Lithuania and Slovenia.

Objectives:

• Explicitly naming boys as driving force and target group in the desegregation of educational and vocational choices with a focus on care professions;
• Developing, implementing and disseminating educational and counselling tools and mechanisms for teachers and vocational counsellors to be able to support boys in their untypical vocational choices;

• Create and improve initiatives for gender untypical vocational choices supporting boys in untypical vocational pathways;

• Challenging the under-representation of men in professional care education including health care, elder care, early childhood education and primary school teaching where the majority of EU countries have less than 15% of their care work undertaken by men;

• Create supportive environments enabling boys to pursue care careers;

• Challenging a cultural ascription of care work as an extension of women’s ‘natural’ function in the family;

• Foster caring masculinities and challenge rigid gender norms.

More about the project: https://www.boys-in-care.eu/

Project leaflet 

The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of project partners  and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Commission. 

Boys in Care is constituted by a diverse and strong partnership that will ensure a good development of the project and high quality results.

The consortium consists of

Coordinator:

 Dissens Institut für Bildung und Forschung e.V -

Germany - http://www.dissens.de/

Partners:

Verein für Männer- und Geschlechterthemen Steiermark – Austria  - http://www.vmg-steiermark.at/

   -

The Peace Institute – Slovenia - http://www.mirovni-institut.si/en/about-the-peace-institute/

Instituto degli Innocenti – Italy - http://www.istitutodeglinnocenti.it/

Center of Women's Studies and Policies – Bulgaria - www.cwsp.bg

Center for Equality Advancement – Lithuania - http://gap.lt/en/ 

Activities:

1.Review of textbooks, teaching and informational material for vocational choices.

2.Review of evaluations of existing projects focussing on boys in untypical occupations (Boys‘ Day, Neue Wege für Jungs) to improve these concepts.

3.Organization of international exchange workshop for experts (mutual learning) about mechanisms for supporting boys in gender untypical vocations (barriers, improvements, transferability).

4.Developing an online toolkit for gender sensitive educational and vocational counselling for teachers and counsellors.

5.Developing and/or improving gender sensitive online informational material for professionals, boys and parents.

6. Developing and implementing modularized training courses for teachers and vocational counsellors with a focus on gender sensitive vocational counselling for boys.

7. Development of a manual, oriented on the needs of teachers and vocational counsellors (incl. strategies, tools, specific knowledge).

8.Specific actions in each country according to local situation and needs.

9. Policy work with associated partners to ensure sustainability of the project results beyond the project duration.