Media Releases

New program helps moms re-enter the workforce

August 17, 2010

TORONTO, ON – As local moms pre­pare to send their kids off to school full-time in Sep­tem­ber, many are think­ing about return­ing to the paid work­force.

A new pro­gram offered through U of T’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment this Octo­ber will help those women fig­ure out ways to kick-start their careers after a peri­od of absence from the work­ing world.  

“At this time of year, moms are busy get­ting their kids ready to go back to school. But it’s also a time many start to think about their own next steps, whether it be going back to school or re-enter­ing the job mar­ket,” says Beat­rix Dart, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Rotman’s Ini­tia­tive for Women in Busi­ness, which offers the new pro­gram. “The Back to Work Pro­gram will give women what they need to suc­ceed in their return to the work­place.”

The brand new pro­gram – which runs for nine days over a three-month peri­od – offers a wide-range of skill- and con­fi­dence-build­ing ses­sions to enable moms to suc­cess­ful­ly re-enter the work­place. Among them:

  • ses­sions that focus on refresh­ing man­age­ment, lead­er­ship and plan­ning skills
  • work­shops designed to help moms famil­iar­ize them­selves with cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy and online tools
  • oppor­tu­ni­ties to re-build sup­port­ive and col­lab­o­ra­tive net­work
  • access to career coach­ing and hir­ing pro­fes­sion­als

The Back to Work pro­gram has already sparked an extra­or­di­nary amount of inter­est among GTA moms, says Dart.

“Get­ting a career back on track after months or years out of the paid work­force is a com­mon chal­lenge,” says Dart. “This pro­gram rec­og­nizes and address­es that need.”

Chris­tine Smee­ton is a moth­er of three boys, aged 9, 8 and 3. She enrolled in the Back to Work pro­gram because – after near­ly a decade out of the work­force – she needs to upgrade some of her tech­ni­cal skills and start net­work­ing to give her career a kick-start.

“I have loved my time at home, but as the kids are get­ting old­er I have been miss­ing work more and more. When I found out about the Back to Work Pro­gram, the tim­ing was per­fect and it was just what I need­ed,” says Smee­ton. “The oppor­tu­ni­ty to sharp­en my skills – espe­cial­ly with respect to tech­nol­o­gy, updat­ing a resume and net­work­ing with oth­er busi­ness pro­fes­sion­als – made this pro­gram very appeal­ing.”

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For more infor­ma­tion on the Back to Work pro­gram, please con­tact:
April Kemick
Media Rela­tions Offi­cer
416–978-5949
April.kemick@utoronto.ca

Haley Green­berg
High Road Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
416–644-2298
Haley.greenberg@highroad.com