Michael works in Employment & Skills for a voluntary sector organisation. He got in touch with us after he’d attended one of our training sessions for practitioners on criminal record disclosure.
“I found the training this week really useful. It was pitched perfectly for me (on a selfish note) and therefore I understood everything we addressed and learnt a lot of new knowledge and skills that I am really excited to use with my clients going forward. I am confident to support clients in identifying spent convictions and advise them on what to disclose now, and the importance of knowing what is actually on their criminal records.
It was useful to know that anyone can ask for their own subject access request, and this is going to be vital and helpful for my clients. As I am sure you can imagine, many of my clients genuinely do not know / cannot remember what’s exactly on their records so it has been hard to know what to disclose in the past.
I use, and have done for 3 years since I started this role, your website on a weekly basis. It’s my go to point when I need / want any information relating to the changes to ROA and disclosure. I have printed off the ‘Is It Spent’ posters and given these to all of our schemes for them to put up in their communal areas. At times I have had to re print them as someone has taken that ‘master’ copy for themselves. I have now started to give out my own little ‘goodie bag’ when meeting a new client and this poster forms part of that too. I have sent this onto probation officers I work with at other probation areas for them to promote internally. I also push the disclosure calculator too, although it hasn’t been 100% accurate due to its only as good as the information being inputted. Now individuals have the subject access request forms this will now be really useful!
I also wasn’t fully aware how small Unlock were as a charity. I think the work being done is vital and brilliant! We will continue to push the work and resources you offer and hope to listen/see you again soon at another event.”
Notes about this case study
This case study relates to Unlock’s criminal record disclosure training.
Names and details have been changed to protect the identity of those involved.
