The University of Bremen received its first family-friendly university award in 2007. For certification, the university had to develop concrete measures and goals in eight fields of action, including human resource development and academic qualification, work, research, and study organization, and services for families. These were then reviewed by the auditors. In 2020, the certificate was awarded permanently. Since then, the renewal of the certification has been carried out in a simplified dialog procedure. "The reason for this is that the University of Bremen has built up permanent structures for the compatibility of career and family over the past 16 years," explains Bettina Schweizer, project leader of the audit family-friendly university.
Offer Includes a Wide Range of Services
Around 3,500 employees and almost 20,000 students at the University of Bremen can benefit from the measures to improve family-friendliness. The offers currently include diverse services such as counseling and childcare. The childcare services include daycare places on and near campus, emergency childcare, children's holiday camps, and out-of-hours childcare.
The Family Care Office is a point of contact for all university employees with family responsibilities - from pregnancy to childcare to caring for relatives. Counseling, information and outreach sessions, children's holiday camps, and tours are offered there.
For students with care responsibilities, the Family-Friendly Studies working group provides services such as children's events and parent cafés.
For the past four years, the Study Work Life Week has also been a permanent part of the family-friendly program. Every day for a week, events are held with experts on a wide range of topics relating to the compatibility of care/care work and career or studies, mainly in an online format. The upcoming 2023 Study Work Life Week will take place from May 8 to May 12. Registration is still possible: https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/familie/study-work-life-week
About the audit workandfamily and the audit family-friendly university
The audit workandfamily / audit family-friendly university is the central offering of berufundfamilie Service GmbH and is based on an initiative of the non-profit Hertie Foundation. Once the auditing process has been completed, an independent board of trustees made up of prominent representatives from business, academia, politics, and associations decides whether to award the certificate for the audit. Practical implementation is reviewed annually by berufundfamilie Service GmbH. Following a period of three years, further personnel policy objectives can be agreed upon twice in the course of re-audits. This is followed (for the first time after nine years) by the dialog procedure. Only if the dialog procedure is successful may the employer continue to carry the certificate. More than 1,900 employers have been awarded the audit certificate since 1998.
Further Information:
https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/familie
https://www.berufundfamilie.de/english-info
Contact:
Bettina Schweizer
Project leader of audit family-friendly university
Administrative Unit for Equal Opportunities / Anti-Discrimination
University of Bremen
Email: bettina.schweizerprotect me ?!vw.uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
Phone: +49 0421 218-60182
