You can see all we achieved in 2015/16 in our annual report.
Why we are here
The world is increasingly complex for anyone with a conviction. It can leave many people hopeless and despairing of ever re-building their lives. The law around disclosure is complicated and inconsistent. There are fewer and fewer sources of advice. Use – often unfair use – of the DBS is snowballing. It gets harder to maintain personal privacy in an online world. Unlock gives people practical help to deal with the everyday challenges of living with a criminal record. We also lobby for fairer systems – changes to make a big difference to many people.
What did we achieve in 2015/16?
In 2015/16 our staff of five:
- campaigned for fairer job-recruitment practices
- we produced helpful guidance
- we queried the use of badly-worded forms
- we challenged employers who used the wrong level of criminal records check
- gave information to hundreds of thousands of people via our Information Hub (nearly 900,000 unique visits).
- engaged with thousands more people with our Disclosure Calculator, Forum and e-magazine (theRecord).
- helped more than 4000 individuals to get the information and advice they needed via our Helpline.
- trained 162 professional practitioners – helping them to help others understand about criminal records.
- gave face-to-face information to dozens of people in prison.
- supported 14 volunteers (including serving prisoners) to become Helpline Assistants and gain valuable work experience.
All this has made a profound difference to individual lives.
“… the information I’ve received off Unlock has been invaluable and has gone a long way to making me feel like my life isn’t ruined! The helpline is amazing; always well-staffed and every single person I spoke to was informative, helpful, reassuring and most importantly, non- judgemental.”
2016/17
This year is even busier! With the need for our work ever-expanding, we estimate over 6000 people will use our Helpline and we’ll receive over one million visits to our online resources.
