Skip to main content
For people with criminal records
For people with criminal records

Category: Helpline

Some examples of people we’ve helped

Looking back over the last couple of months, we’ve written up a few examples of the people we’ve helped.

We hope they give a good idea of how we help people.

However, more importantly than our role, we think that these examples show how people with convictions are able to overcome some of the barriers that have been put in their way due to their criminal record.

We’ve posted the examples below as case studies in the support section of our website:

 

Max – Don’t let the fact that an employer is asking for a DBS check put you off applying for a job

Nick – Be really clear about your criminal record before you start applying for work as you may disclose something you don’t need to

Paul – Don’t underestimate the benefits of volunteering as a way of getting back into paid work

 

Two national awards for our peer-run helpline

We’re delighted to announce that our helpline picked up two awards at the national ‘Helpline Awards 2016’ held in London last Friday (4th November).

We came 2nd in the ‘Helpline Impact’ award category, and Debbie Sadler, our advice manager, came 3rd in the ‘Employee of the Year’ category.

two-awards
Debbie Sadler (Advice Manager) and Christopher Stacey (Co-director) collecting the awards

Commenting on her award, Debbie said:

“There’s such a strong field of amazing helplines and employees, so I’m incredibly proud to be awarded 3rd place as helpline employee of the year. It’s great to be involved in Unlock – it’s such a fantastic organisation. To be recognised in this way for doing a job that I feel so passionate about is the icing on the cake.”

The award for impact recognises the significant increase in numbers of people contacting us directly and using our websites for information/advice. It also reinforces the efforts the team have gone to in the last couple of years to underpin the helpline by following up with people and tracking outcomes that follow from our support, so that we can demonstrate the impact the helpline has.

These awards show the unique role that our helpline plays in providing information, advice and support to people with convictions. The awards build on findings of an independent evaluation that we published earlier this year. We wouldn’t have won either of these awards without the small but fantastic team of staff and volunteers that we have.

Finally, we’re grateful to the charitable trusts and individual donations that help us to run the helpline as an independent, non-government source of support to people who are looking for confidential advice in overcoming the effects of their criminal convictions.

More information

Trial for November – the helpline will be open until 7pm each Wednesday

Our helpline is the forefront of the direct support that we provide, and since we launched it in 2008 it’s only ever been open during normal office working hours.

As part of providing information, advice and support for people with convictions, we’re always looking at ways to improve and make it more accessible.

We have decided to run a trial of extending the opening hours of the helpline.

So for November, we’re going to keep the helpline open until 7pm each Wednesday. Given the way the days fall in November, it means for 5 weeks we’ll be open on Wednesday until 7pm. The dates n November this will apply to are the 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th.

As a team, we’re going to split the extra working hours between us and crucially, we’ll keep a track on the number of calls we receive and try and find out why people have called us at that time. That should give us a good sense of whether there’s any demand in the future and what benefits it brings to those that call during those times.

Help us raise awareness

It’s now important for us to raise awareness of this trial so that people know they can call us on these dates after our normal 4pm closing time. That’s why we’ve written this post, and we’ll be tweeting using the hastag #unlockhelpline – help us spread awareness as best as you can.

After the trial, we’ll reflect and post an update on here to let you know how it went and what we plan to do next.

Some examples of people we’ve helped

Looking back over the last couple of months, we’ve written up a few examples of the people we’ve helped.

We hope they give a good idea of how we help people.

However, more importantly than our role, we think that these examples show how people with convictions are able to overcome some of the barriers that have been put in their way due to their criminal record.

We’ve posted the examples below as case studies in the support section of our website:

 

Evan – If you’re finding it difficult to get paid employment, think about becoming self-employed

Jeremy – Make sure you’re clear about what type of conviction you’ve received and whether you legally need to disclose it before you do

Kevin – It’s always worth applying to Google to have search links removed even if source sites refuse to remove the story

 

Some examples of people we’ve helped

Looking back over the last couple of months, we’ve written up a few examples of the people we’ve helped.

We hope they give a good idea of how we help people.

However, more importantly than our role, we think that these examples show how people with convictions are able to overcome some of the barriers that have been put in their way due to their criminal record.

We’ve posted the examples below as case studies in the support section of our website:

 

Patricia – Proof of disclosing for employment disputes

Bernadette – Not disclosing on the application form

Alisha – Don’t be too honest if you don’t need to be

 

Some examples of the people we’ve helped

Looking back over the last couple of months, we’ve written up a few examples of the people we’ve helped.

We hope they give a good idea of how we help people.

However, more importantly than our role, we think that these examples show how people with convictions are able to overcome some of the barriers that have been put in their way due to their criminal record.

We’ve posted the examples below as case studies in the support section of our website:

 

Mia – Travel abroad whilst on licence 

Jamie – You can be forgotten – Success when applying to Google 

Connor – Finally accepted into university

Anne – Should a criminal record prevent the award of a PhD?

 

An independent evaluation of our helpline

Today, we’re delighted to publish Unlocking the helpline, an independent analysis and evaluation of our confidential peer-run helpline carried out by Professor Sue Wilkinson of the University of York.

Ever since Unlock started as a charity over 15 years ago, we’ve provided peer advice to people with convictions. Eight years ago we employed our first dedicated member of staff to run our helpline and for over 7 years we’ve been recruiting volunteers from the community in Kent (including from nearby open prisons).

Although a lot has changed in that time, one thing has remained the same – people with convictions continue to come to us looking for information, advice and support to try and deal with the stigma and discrimination they’re facing because of their criminal record.

We speak to thousands of people every year – people facing a wide-range of issues relating to their criminal records. Finding a job, getting insurance, renting a house and going abroad on holiday, to name but a few.

However, as an independent service that’s charitably funded and reliant on trusts, foundations and donations to continue operating, it’s important that we can show that what we’re doing is making a difference and that it deserves support. As is the case with many helplines, it’s hard to show the impact it has on the people that contact us.

So we set about trying to find out more. It wasn’t really about numbers. We know how many people we speak to. We have a good idea of who they are, where they come from and what problems they’re having. What we didn’t know was answers to questions like:

  1. How useful is our helpline?
  2. How helpful is it that it’s peer run (i.e. run by people with convictions)
  3. What works well?
  4. Where could we improve?

That’s why a couple of years ago we embarked on undertaking an independent evaluation of our helpline with the support of Professor Sue Wilkinson of the University of York; she’s an expert in conversational analysis. We worked hard to make sure that the system we set up would enable a robust evaluation to take place without getting in the way of the confidentiality we attach to the helpline.

Over the space of five months, two of our helpline advisors recorded over 200 calls (with the callers’ permission). We then handed over the recordings to Sue and her team and waited for the results.What you can read below is a summary of the report and its key findings. You can also download the full report, which has been independently written by the author, Sue Wilkinson.

We are delighted with the findings in Unlocking the helpline – with this report we have strong, indepedent evidence to show how our helpline works and how it operates. It shows the value of having people with personal experience, the benefit of having a supportive voice at the end of the phone and the importance of knowing you’re speaking to somebody who knows what they’re talking about.

We hope that this report will support our efforts in continuing the run our helpline in a way that is independent, confidential, high-quality, peer run and reliable.

Some of the findings and comments in the report that stood out to me were:

“Overall, the helpline appears extremely effective as a source of information, and it is clearly also providing callers with a significant amount of non-informational support.”

 

“The Unlock helpline is relatively unusual in that the call-takers do not strive for neutrality: rather, one of its ‘hallmarks’ is the degree of understanding and empathy that is displayed by the call-takers, as part of the process of providing non-informational help and support for callers.”

 

“Call-takers promote positive thinking and discourage negative thinking.”

 

“Offering reassurance and boosting confidence fit well with Unlock’s aim of empowerment of people with convictions.”

 

“Call-takers clearly draw on their personal and professional experience”

We are grateful to Professor Sue Wilkinson of the University of York and her team for all their hard work on this report. We hope you find the report an interesting read.

 

Useful links

  1. Find out more about the evaluation here
  2. You can download the full evaluation here
  3. More details about the helpline that Unlock runs can be found here
  4. If you’re interested in supporting our helpline, you can donate to us here or visit the ‘get involved’ section of our website.

Got a criminal record? Ever had difficulties finding employment?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If so, we want to hear from you – find out more here!

The Centre for Entrepreneurs and Unlock are working together to better understand the role of entrepreneurship in supporting people with criminal records. We know that finding employment with a criminal record can be a struggle, and we are interested in exploring whether starting a business is a viable alternative.

Find out more here

Some examples of people we’ve helped

Looking back over the last couple of months, we’ve written up a few examples of the people we’ve helped.

We hope they give a good idea of how we help people.

However, more importantly than our role, we think that these examples show how people with convictions are able to overcome some of the barriers that have been put in their way due to their criminal record.

We’ve posted the examples below as case studies in the support section of our website:

Benny – Success with the Scouts

Lee – Negotiating disclosure with the police

Sharmini – Disclosing a conviction in a different way

 

We want to make sure that our website is as helpful as possible.

Letting us know if you easily found what you were looking for or not enables us to continue to improve our service for you and others.

Was it easy to find what you were looking for?

Thank you for your feedback.

12 million people have criminal records in the UK. We need your help to help them.

Help support us now