Category: For specific groups

Check out our LinkedIn page

At Unlock, we like to think of ourselves as making good use of social media as an effective way of communicating with a range of groups of people.

Yet, if we’re being honest, although we try and make regular use of Twitter and Facebook, we’ve probably neglected the role of LinkedIn, and how it might help us to reach out and engage with others.

So that’s what’s new – we’re going to start.

Given LinkedIn is a business-orientated social networking site, to us that means it’s potentially a great way to engage with other organisations and practitioners.

Although we’ve had a page on LinkedIn for a while, we haven’t really used it. So, from now on, we plan to use it to share updates, particularly those that we think might of interest to other organisations, including those that help people with convictions, employers, insurers and others that use criminal records.

So please help us raise awareness of our page – if you have a LinkedIn page, please visit our page and hit ‘Follow’ in the top right-hand corner, or click the ‘Follow’ button below.

Monthly Update – August 2015

We’ve just published our monthly update for August 2015.

These updates provide a summary of:

the latest updates to our self-help information sitefor people with convictions
recent posts to our online magazine, theRecord
other news and developments that might be of interest to individuals with a criminal record

This months update includes:

Information on spent and unspent convictions and when you might have to disclose them
Implications for those on supervision in the community following the Offender Rehabilitation Act coming into force earlier this year
Details of a success in dealing with the ‘google-effect’
A link to our draft ‘Principles of Fair Chance Hiring’ that we’re currently consulting on
A volunteering opportunity to help us with digital storytelling

Read the August 2015 update in full here.

Google ordered to remove search results about a spent conviction

In an interesting development to the issue of the ‘google-effect’ and spent convictions, the Guardian has reported that Google has been ordered by the Information Commissioner’s Office to remove nine links to current news stories about older reports which themselves were removed from search results under the ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling.

The search engine had previously removed links relating to a 10 year-old criminal offence by an individual after requests were made as the offence is now spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.

Removal of the original links from Google’s search results led to new news posts detailing the removals, which were then indexed by Google’s search engine. Google refused to remove these further links, which included details of the original criminal offence, despite them forming part of search results for the individual’s name, arguing that they are an essential part of a recent news story and in the public interest.

Google now has 35 days from the 18 August to remove the links from its search results for the individual’s name.

We will be keeping a close eye on how this case develops, and hope that Google will take the sensible steps of removing the links and upholding the privacy of the individual concerned.

Useful links

Have you managed to get details of your convictions removed from search results? Let us know – send us your experience
More information on issue of the ‘google-effect’ and spent convictions can be found on our policy page here.
We also have practical information for people dealing with the google-effect on our information site.

Response to Scottish Government Consultation

We’ve submitted our written response to the Scottish Governments’ consultation on proposals to reform the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

Broadly, we support the proposals, but urge the Scottish Government to go further, in the same way that we continue to urge the UK Government to build on the reforms that came into force in 2014.

Our approach to employers

As our employment project has begun to gather momentum, we thought it was important to explain our approach to employers as part of this work.

We recently published a specific page which sets this out in more detail, available here.

We’ve also provided more details about how we support employers – this is available here.

Survey about the new forum

Many thanks to everybody that responded to our forum survey.

The winner of the £25 Amazon voucher was randomly selected and has asked that the £25 goes to a charity of Unlock’s choosing.

The results have been extremely helpful with many responses being really positive about what is currently available. However, some members felt that the forum needed to be more user friendly, especially for people who are not so computer literate.

This feedback will be hugely helpful to us as we continue to develop an improved forum.

We hope to provide a further update on progress later this year.

Are you a providing probation services? New 2-day criminal record disclosure training course

We’re excited to announce the details of a new a two-day training course, ‘Supporting with Conviction’, designed specifically for probation providers, staff in Community Rehabilitation Companies, and specialists helping people with convictions to get into employment.

At a time when probation provision is going through significant change, both in terms of structure and people, it’s critically important that those responsible for supporting people with convictions have the confidence, knowledge and skills to advise and support their clients on the dealing with the impact of their criminal record.

This ‘Supporting with Conviction’ course builds on the success of Unlock’s one-day training, which we’ve delivered to over 400 practitioners in the last 18 months. Our new two-day course has been specifically designed to meet the needs of probation providers, CRC’s, and other specialist practitioners such as Work Programme advisors.

Christopher Stacey, Co-Director at Unlock said “The recent changes to probation provision present a unique opportunity to ensure that the advice and support provided to people with convictions, both before release from prison and in the community, is of a genuinely high standard.”

“I know from the training courses that we run that there is a huge gap in the knowledge, awareness and understanding amongst those very people who are the primary source of support for people with convictions shortly after their conviction. That’s why we believe this type of training is so important.

“We are particularly keen to work with probation providers to ensure that their staff and practitioners working in a client-facing role have high-quality training on advising and supporting their clients on criminal records, the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, disclosing to employers and criminal record checks.”

“It’s clear from the feedback that we get that there’s a demand for more time and detail than what we offer in our one-day course, so this is our response. The two-day course is designed as a comprehensive training package covering all important areas of criminal record disclosure as it relates to people with a criminal record. Split over two days, the course allows plenty of time for discussion and practical exercises. It also allows for attendees to reflect on the complexities of the law around disclosure, which are covered in the first day.”

“We’re looking forward to working with a range of organisations to genuinely improve the advice and support that people with convictions receive.”

To find out more about this training:

More details about the course are on our website.
To arrange to run an in-house course for your organisation.
If you have any questions about this course, or our support for practitioners more generally, please contact Debbie Young. Call 01622 230705 or email admin@unlock.org.uk.

Notes

Unlock is an independent advocacy charity for people with convictions. As an organisation that doesn’t take government funding to deliver services, it was clear to us that our role in probation services would be one that supports those organisations that deliver services on the ground. This builds on our track record of providing accurate and reliable advice and support to people with convictions, while working at a policy level to push for a fairer and more inclusive society.
There’s more information about our training on our website
You can find out more general information about our support for providers of probation at unlock.devchd.com/probation
Alongside this exciting development, we continue to run our ever-popular one-day ‘Advising with Conviction’ training – dates for 2016 will be announced in the coming months.

Volunteer Vacancy – Helpline Advisor

We’ve got a volunteer vacancy on our Helpline.

More details can be found here.

Help us improve our online forum

Now that it’s 7 years old, we are working on giving our forum a bit of an update and we want to hear from people with convictions about what an updated forum would look like, and how it would work.

Complete the survey here

Find out more about this work by reading a longer update we’ve posted on our information site.

Help us to challenge employment discrimination

Work is progressing well to lay the foundations for our project to challenge employment discrimination. We’re now at the stage where we want to start opening out the conversation, to help to shape the project.

This update is the first of what we hope will be an ongoing conversation – with employers, with people with convictions, and with others who have an interest in ensuring that employers have fair and inclusive policies and procedures that support the recruitment of people with convictions.

There’s a number of things we’re working on, and we’re keen to get your input.

Help us develop good practice and resources for employers
Send us evidence of bad practice
How would you like to be treated when applying for work?

Help us develop good practice and resources for employers

One of the key focuses of the project is to support employers in developing good policies and practices. One way we’re going about this by developing a resource centre specifically for employers.

So, we’re going back to basics. We want to make sure that we support employers who choose to consider criminal records by helping them to do so in a way that is fair, inclusive and lawful. However, we also want to challenge the inappropriate use of criminal records and to question the assumption amongst some employers that criminal records checks should always form part of their recruitment process in all circumstances.

To help us do this, we want to know what you think ‘good practice’ looks like.

We’re keen to get the thoughts of a range of people. We’re particularly keen to hear from employers about what you would find useful in helping you in this process. We’re keen to highlight the different ways that employers have tried to make themselves more open and inclusive towards people with convictions. We’re also looking for suggestions of existing resources that you’ve found useful.

We’ve put together a short set of questions, and we’d be grateful if you could spare a few minutes to share your thoughts (you can stay anonymous if you wish).

Complete the online survey here.

Alternatively, you can read the questions here and email your answers and other thoughts on this topic to employer@unlock.org.uk.

Send us evidence of bad practice

Alongside our work to support employers to develop good practice, we’re also on the look-out for evidence of bad practice by employers with regards to the policies and processes that they have in place for job applicants with criminal records.

This could include employers that:

Have a blanket policy of not recruiting anybody with unspent convictions
Carry out DBS checks for roles not eligible for them
Request applicants to provide a copy of their ‘police record’ (also known as ‘enforced subject access’)
Don’t give applicants an opportunity to explain their criminal record

Find out more details here about how to send us examples and evidence of bad practice.

How would you like to be treated when applying for work?

Alongside our survey of employers, we’re also keen to hear from people with convictions about how they’d like to be treated when applying for work.

In particular, we’d like to know what you think is a ‘fair’ way of dealing with criminal records as part of the recruitment process.

To do this we’ve put together a short survey for people with convictions.

You can complete the survey online survey here (you can stay anonymous if you wish).

Alternatively, you can read the questions here and email your answers to employer@unlock.org.uk.

Interesting in keeping updated about this work?

You can subscribe to receive these types of updates by email by signing up to our email updates and choosing to receive ‘News on our work challenging employment discrimination’.