Community Archaeology Training Placements

[BAJR]

Community Archaeology Training Placements

The CBA has received a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Skills for the Future programme. This will enable us to offer year-long workplace bursaries at selected organisations across the UK over a three year period, designed to equip would-be community archaeologists with the skills, experience and confidence to work with voluntary groups and communities in their future careers.

The application was developed with support from English Heritage and we look forward to working in partnership with a variety of partners across the UK, including English Heritage, Cadw and Historic Scotland

Each year the project will place Community Archaeology Training Placements (CATPs) in strategically identified host organisations across the UK that have existing experience of delivering strong and effective community archaeology programmes. A set of specific criteria is used for identifying and assessing an organisation’s appropriateness for hosting a placement, to ensure that they can demonstrate delivery of effective projects and to ensure adherence to professional standards and organisations will be invited to submit applications to host a placement each year.

Individual placement opportunities will be advertised through a variety of sources in and around January of each year; with placements intending to start at the beginning of each financial year.

Training for CATPS will primarily take place on-the-job, in the workplace. Experienced staff within the host organisations are responsible for training the CATPs by means of such as shadowing, coaching, and mentoring. All CATPs will also be given the opportunity to undertake the Level 3 NVQ in Archaeological Practice, enabling them to demonstrate that they have particular sets of skills, competencies or experience which then enhances their professional credibility and employability.





9 CATPs have been appointed for 2011/12.

• Ffion Reynolds (Cadw)
  
• Kirsty Whittall (Centre for Applied Archaeology, University of Salford)
  
• Menna Bell (Dyfed Archaeological Trust)
  
• Natasha Scullion (Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust)
  
• Tegid Williams (Gwynedd Archaeological Trust)
  
• Samantha Rowe (National Museums Liverpool)
  
• Amy Gillespie (RCAHMS)
  
• Laura Joyner (Surrey County Archaeology Unit)
  
• Hannah Baxter (York Archaeological Trust)
  

Hey Hannah! good luck there! :face-approve:

[Marcus Brody]

I'm not sure how I can say this without sounding massively sexist, but the first thing that struck me about the list of successful candidates was that eight out of nine are women, when surely a split closer to 50-50 would be expected. I'm sure that each was the best candidate for their respective posts, but I think it would be worrying if community work were to become seen as a female 'ghetto'. I remember when I was starting out, you got the sense from some people you met on site that women should be working indoors, in finds or something, leaving the site work to the hairy-arsed men (and conversely, that 'real men' didn't work in the office), and I would hope that a similar sense doesn't attach itself to community work.

[kevin wooldridge]

I am sure that the opportunity to apply for these training placements was open to all. Looking at the 'host' employers, I am pretty certain the interview and selection procedures were fair. It seems in this case that 89% of the best candidates happened to be of the same gender.....totally unremarkable!!

[Dinosaur]

Has always seemed to be the case that 'specialisms' involving not shovelling-in-the-rain were disproportionately populated by women - maybe they've got more sense or imagination?

Can't think of a single case of a guy ever asking me how to get work in a specialism. Have a PD in front of me where 75% of the specialists we've said we'll employ to deal with whatever comes up are women, and thinking back over the last 20 years I'd guess that's about average? Palaeopathology, Roman and Med/PM pot, charred plant bits, quite a large proportion of the people at the firm we use for the other biological bits, querns, etc etc. Doesn't leave much for the guys.... haven't met too many male site finds people or seiving operatives either (ok, I've been both...)

[Dinosaur]

...anyone know the gender split amongst the PAS people?

[BAJR]

40 Finds Liaison Officers.

Male: 14

Female: 26

[Marcus Brody]

I am sure that the opportunity to apply for these training placements was open to all. Looking at the 'host' employers, I am pretty certain the interview and selection procedures were fair. It seems in this case that 89% of the best candidates happened to be of the same gender.....totally unremarkable!!

I wasn't suggesting that the placements weren't open to everyone, and I said in my original post that I was sure that each of the successful candidates was the best for the job they got. The point I was trying to make was probably closer to that made in Dinosaur's post, along the lines of whether there's some reason that men don't seem to be particularly well represented in specialist fields, in this case community archaeology. Is there some reason that men don't apply for these sort of posts - for example, why can't Dinosaur think of a single case of a guy asking how to get work in a specialism?

[P Prentice]

I wasn't suggesting that the placements weren't open to everyone, and I said in my original post that I was sure that each of the successful candidates was the best for the job they got. The point I was trying to make was probably closer to that made in Dinosaur's post, along the lines of whether there's some reason that men don't seem to be particularly well represented in specialist fields, in this case community archaeology. Is there some reason that men don't apply for these sort of posts - for example, why can't Dinosaur think of a single case of a guy asking how to get work in a specialism?

because he would laugh at them and call them a girl

[Dinosaur]

because he would laugh at them and call them a girl

That's alright, I always tell the girls in question that they must be joking - most existing archaeological specialisms are already fully occupied by the people who invented them and still have 20 years to retirement, hence all the new ones that keep cropping up....

Good guess on the FLO posts though

[Wax]

Plenty of male specialists in this neck of the woods. Even male community archaeologists. Though there does appear to be a bias in the bursaries. I wonder if this might be because the girls are more likely to volunteer for the public facing side of archaeology?