Our response to Covid-19

Like every person and every organisation, we’re changing how we do things in response to the Covid-19 virus and we’ll keep this page updated with developments.

In response to the government advice at the time, and in particular in advising social distancing and working from home where possible, we temporarily closed the Unlock office on Tuesday 17th March and we have put into action the contingency plans that we had been developing in recent weeks.

We’re doing this by:

1. Continuing to manage our develop our digital information and resources. We’ve published specific information on Covid-19 for people with criminal records.
2. Continuing to provide direct support. Our helpline is still open, Monday to Friday 10am to 4pm, although we have less people available to answer calls than normal. If you struggle to get through you can leave us a message, but we are in a better position to respond to queries by email – you can email the helpline team at advice@unlock.org.uk.
3. Continuing to help, represent and campaign for people with criminal records in the best way that we can. We’re bringing together the emerging issues and impact on Covid-19 on people with criminal records.
4. Working from home. Some of our staff were already home-based but our office staff (and some of our volunteers) are now working from home too. The team is well connected and are in regular contact with each other.
5. Cancelling any face-to-face meetings. We are using tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom to continue to have meetings with colleagues with other organisations.
6. Pausing the delivery of our face-to-face training. We have been in touch with those individuals and organisations that had booked training courses in the coming weeks to rearrange these for July onwards.
7. Trying to reduce any post.  As our office is closed, we have limited access to any post so we’re encouraging things to be sent by email instead.

You can still get in touch with us in the usual ways and follow our work through twitter.

Stay safe!