Young Adult Panel

What do we want Young Adult Panel to do?

There are three main things we want the panel to do:

1. Help us make sure that our information and advice is both clear and easy for young adults to understand and effectively accessible for young adults
2. To help us develop work to hear the experience and views of young adults with criminal records
3. To assess our website and give feedback as to whether it is accessible to young adults and answers the questions they are likely to want to see answered

This will require 30 hours of work over 3-4 months. We will pay £12/hour. Much of this time will be spent working independently on set tasks, such as reviewing the Unlock website to see how well it caters for the needs of young adults.

We are looking for people who are willing to offer both positive and negative feedback – you need to be comfortable doing this, as we want to know where what we do is good and where it could be better. Given the fact that you’ll be assessing our communications and website, a good level of English in reading and writing will be needed.

There will be five virtual meetings. Panel members will need to use their own devices to access online resources, read documents, provide written feedback and attend virtual meetings.

What benefits are there of being a panelist?

• We will pay £12/hour for 30 hours of work across 3-4 months.
• You will gain skills and experience that will hopefully be useful in any future work that you may want to take on. Specifically, we will offer panelists short training sessions on the criminal records system and the various areas of Unlock’s work: helpline and advice, policy and influencing, media and communications. This would be particularly useful for anyone thinking of finding a job in a support service or charity similar to Unlock in the future.
• We also hope that panelists would find the work rewarding, and that they might take satisfaction from knowing that their voice has been heard and they have helped improve what we do at Unlock.

What kind of people are we looking for?

Any young adult (18-25) with a criminal record. This panel is only open to those with first-hand experience of having a criminal record. It does not matter whether or not your criminal record is spent or filtered, or whether or not your conviction resulted in a prison sentence; we are interested in hearing from anyone with any kind of criminal record. We will not ask for any further details about your criminal record, require any disclosure or carry out any criminal record checks. We do not require you to tell us anything about your criminal record, though if you feel that doing so would be important in your application you may do so. Anything you do share in your application will only be read by those selecting people for the panel.

A good panelist will:

• be interested in the work we do at Unlock to support people with criminal records
• be able to work independently and as part of a team
• have good communication skills, including feeling comfortable offering both positive and negative feedback
• have good English language skills, in both reading and writing
• be keen to work with other young people to improve the lives of young adults with criminal records

No specific qualifications or experience are needed.

Unlock strives to be an inclusive organisation and we would welcome applications from racially minoritised communities. Similarly, we hope that the panel will be gender diverse. As we want the panel to represent a diversity of voices and experiences, we will consider the backgrounds and experiences of those who apply.

Panelists need to be able to access online resources, read documents, provide written feedback and attend virtual meetings. This does not necessarily have to be on a laptop, but a device you can use for this is necessary.