“I’ve got to run soon,” says Lord Ramsbotham, life peer in the House of Lords and president of Unlock. Speaking at Unlock’s reception, he adds: “But before I do I have to say, this is one of the nicest rooms in the House of Lords. It was a drawing room for the Lords Chancellor and now it’s

Today we delivered a training session to the Employers Forum for Reducing Reoffending (EFFRR), covering a range of common questions that employers have when they are looking to recruit people with convictions.  Download a factsheet that was produced after the session. Find out more information about our support for employers here.

On a daily basis, our helpline gets calls from people who are applying for work and don’t know where they stand because of criminal record checks that (increasingly) employers are carrying out. A couple of years ago, we approached the DBS (Disclosure & Barring Service – known as the CRB at that time) and raised

Why? We’ll be explaining about Unlock and our Helpline, which provides confidential peer advice on overcoming the effects of criminal convictions Different topics will be covered in detail at each session Our Helpline Advisors will be on hand to answer any questions you might have You’ll have the opportunity to book a free one-to-one session

As a result of increased staff and voluntary resources available to our helpline, we’ve now been able to re-open our Helpline 5 days a week (it had previously been restricted to 2 days a week). As always, as a small charity, it may not always be possible for us to answer your call immediately, as

We’re delighted to announce that we have a new member of staff. As many of you will know, we’ve had quite a few changes at Unlock recently. When we announced that Chris Bath was leaving us at the end of February, we committed to investing our resources into front-line staff. This ultimately resulted in the

Unlock has today won the Guardian Charity Award for its work tackling the economic and social exclusion of reformed offenders. The charity was selected as one of five winners from almost 1,000 entries, the largest number ever received in the history of the awards. The charity focuses on the ongoing discrimination which can prevent reformed

We are proud to announce that we have been chosen as a winner at the Guardian Charity Awards 2011  Pictured (from left to right): Jane Asher (President, Arthritis Care, Parkinson’s UK and the National Autistic Society); Christopher Stacey, Julie Harmsworth and Chris Bath from Unlock; and Jonathan Pryce (Actor and Patron of Friendship Works).  “Remarkable and

As part of the launch of our Disclosure Calculator, we sent out a newswire which was picked up by Media Trust. The article is available here.

This October we took to the House of Lords, armed with one Minister and two Lords, to launch the Unlock Criminal Record Disclosure Calculator. It’s a new online tool to help people determine when their conviction will be ‘spent’. The Rt Hon Lord McNally – Minister of State for the Ministry of Justice; Lord Navnit

Our Chris Bath has written a powerful article in a fascinating publication, Civil Dialogue. The article looks at the relationship between Government and the Voluntary Sector. You can download the publication here (see page 12 for the start of the Unlock piece).

We’ve contributed to a careers advice publication, where Christopher Stacey talks about his current role in managing Unlock’s Information & Advice Service. You can download the article here.