FUTURE WORKFORCE AND STEM
A successful week with tomorrow’s engineers
Encouraging able new entrants, and particularly young people, into healthcare engineering and estates management, and wider STEM roles, is an ongoing priority for IHEEM, and one of the key strategic goals for CEO, Pete Sellars. In late January, IHEEM Project Support Officer, Monira Kaouech, the Institute’s STEM Ambassador, spent a week holding workshops and presentations in schools and colleges in North-East England, working with professionals already in the field, to give young people a flavour of a career in healthcare engineering and estate management, the associated construction supply chain, and wider engineering. As HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, discovered from her during a subsequent discussion, post- event questionnaires showed participant engagement levels of up to 97 per cent.
Monira Kaouech signed up as a STEM Ambassador early in 2019, and has since co-ordinated and staged a number of similar workshops, which she has much enjoyed being involved in. She explained, before going on to tell me more about late January’s successful ‘Collaboration, Diversity, and STEM Week’ in North-East England: “Since becoming a STEM Ambassador, I have held eight or nine workshops, including in Birmingham and the Tees Valley. I will be looking to hold more, both locally in the area around IHEEM’s Portsmouth head office, and elsewhere in the country where schools are willing to participate, over coming months.
“During the week I spent up in the Tees Valley, beginning on 28 January this year, our goal was to hold workshop-type events in schools and colleges across the five Boroughs there. I drove up to the North-East, having initially had contact from Paula McMahon, a civil engineer who is a Regional Supervising Officer at Sir Robert McAlpine, and is based in the construction company’s Darlington office. Like me, she has been involved in previous ‘People Like Me’ workshops – a collaboration between a large number of institutions under the ‘Engineering Together’ banner. Paula is also the chair of the North-East Engineering Together Society, and had been looking to reach out to other engineering institutes on the STEM front.”
Founder of a key North-East engineering group
Paula McMahon, it transpired, was among the key founders of The North East Community of Professional Engineers (NECoPE), which was initially formed in Tyneside, formalising the existing relationship between some of the Professional Engineering Institutions and the partners they worked with. At the
Left to right: Monira Kaouech, Rory Cosgrove, Sam Criddle, Britney Javis, Katherine Jones, Paula McMahon, Alan Spraggon, Carole Winter, Cameron Patterson, Jack Forster, and Penny Metcalfe, at High Tunstall College of Science.
North-East Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) annual formal dinner in early 2019, it was proposed to extend the group to the Tees Valley. Shortly after this, Paula McMahon, who is also the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Teesside chair, invited representatives from the local institutions and other aligned groups to the first meeting. This was held at the Sir Robert McAlpine offices in Billingham on 4 April 2019.
The Tees Valley Group expanded to incorporate a variety of organisations, and was renamed ‘Engineering Together’. Engineering Together has ‘continued to build in strength, numbers, and diversity’, since its launch on 20 June 2019 at Ormesby Hall in Middlesbrough. Paula McMahon said: “We are continuing with our programme of knowledge sharing, networking, and collaboration, to make the best use of our resources and volunteers. A fine example of this is the work we are doing with IHEEM by bringing together many organisers and
role models to benefit schools in each of the five Tees Valley Boroughs. “My varied career,” she continued, “has included high profile jobs on the Thames Barrier and Hinkley Point. My management roles on complex international schemes with large multidisciplinary design and construction teams have earned me Chartered Fellow status of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).
Loving her coaching role “I have worked for Sir Robert McAlpine (SRM) on the A19 Project for nearly five years. In 2019 I was appointed Regional Supervising Officer for ICE (Institution of Civil Engineers) candidates in the North of England and Scotland. Coaching candidates from the company to become professionally qualified has become the largest part of my day job, which I absolutely love. I have, for very many years, been an active STEM Ambassador, and have recently become a North East
May 2020 Health Estate Journal 39
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
