Siobhán has joined the Coalition of Carers which is chaired by Carers NI and continues to attend regular meetings of the Coalition. The Coalition is made up of a number of organisations all working to highlight the key issues that carers are facing across Northern Ireland.
Siobhán continues to the meet with the working group for the Northern Ireland Child Payment Coalition. The introduction of a NI Child Payment was a recommendation by the Gender Equality and Anti-Poverty Expert Panels and in the Feminist Recovery Plan.
Siobhán is part of a campaign from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust calling for an Essentials Guarantee within Universal Credit. The Essentials Guarantee would embed in the social security system a principle that at a minimum Universal Credit should protect people from going without essentials. You can read more about the campaign […]
The Executive Office (TEO) have issued a consultation to seek views on the new Strategic Framework to End Violence Against Women and Girls and Foundational Action Plan. This is a draft seven-year Strategic Framework to End Violence Against Women and Girls which has been co-designed with over 50 partners from across government, community and voluntary […]
Following the Secretary of State’s Budget 2023-24 the Department of Education has issued a consultation on its Budget 2023-24 Equality Impact Assessment. This EQIA outlines a series of proposed cuts to the Department’s Budget including to the Holiday Hunger Scheme, Extended Schools programme and Digital Devices Scheme. Research by the Consortium has highlighted the impacts […]
The Department for Communities (DfC) have issued an Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) on Discretionary Support. This is an important consultation as Consortium research with women over a number of years has highlighted the importance of Discretionary Support to women and families. Discretionary Support provides support to people in crisis or emergency situations providing important financial […]
Following the launch of the research on Women’s Experiences of the Cost-of-Living Crisis, Siobhán is working with Dr Ciara Fitzpatrick and Dr Alexandra Chapman from Ulster University (who co-wrote the research paper) on a small project to try and raise awareness of the Healthy Start Scheme in Northern Ireland. During the research, we identified that Northern […]
The Consortium’s latest research paper with the Ulster University Law Clinic was launched in Ulster University on 20th June. The launch included a summary of the main points in the research as well as a number of personal insights from the women who took part in the research. They spoke really powerfully about the impact […]
Women are a hard demographic of learners to access for a reason, because they have very little free time to do anything for themselves and gaining access to mainstream Education & Training has never been easy for women. There have always been massive barriers for women to overcome such as no childcare provision, no financial […]
We are currently facing unprecedented cuts to each Executive Department which will result in incredibly harmful impacts, disproportionately impacting on the equality of women and other protected groups. Women’s place in education, training and work has not always been guaranteed, and there are still great inequalities that persist in these areas. The proposed cuts pose […]
