Welcome to our new website

Summary
What’s changed?
Where does this new site fit in?
What do you think?
New links…we need your help

Summary

This week we launched our new website; if you haven’t already seen it, please take a look at unlock.devchd.com.

When we first set out on developing the new site in mid-2013, we carried out a survey to learn more about how people used the site site and how they think it could be improved.

Since then, we launched a dedicated Information Hub in November 2013, and we’ve now added to this with a new core-website.

We’re now looking for your feedback – please complete our short survey here.

What’s changed?

We’ve spent a lot of time sorting out some of the issues we were having with old our site, given it was nearly 10 years old. Some of the key changes;

• The navigation on the site has been improved
• The content on the site has been completely reviewed and updated
• The way our news and updates work should make it a lot easier to find relevant news
• We’ve removed the use of ‘google adverts’
• Some people were finding that their anti-virus software was preventing them from accessing our site. This should now be resolved.

There’s still work to do – it’s not completely finished just yet, but we were keen to make it live as soon as it was possible to publish it – so things will continue to change behind the scenes.

Where does this new site fit in?

This new core website now sits at the heart of the sites that we have. As a quick summary, we have:

1. unlock.devchd.com – This is our main/core website, where we explain more about Unlock as a charity, who is involved, the support that we provide, our current areas of focus, and latest news/developments
2. unlock.devchd.com/information-and-advice/ – This is our information hub, which we maintain as the country’s most comprehensive source of online self-help information on a wide range of issues that criminal convictions can affect
3. forum.unlock.org.uk – This is an online peer-to-peer forum enabling people with convictions to support one another
4. www.disclosurecalculator.org.uk – This is a tool that enables you to work out when your convictions become spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
5. unlock.devchd.com/community – This is an online magazine for and by people with convictions

What do you think?

Now that we’ve launched our new core website, we want to know what you think about the new site, as well as how you think our sites could be improved.

We’d be really grateful if you could spare a few minutes to complete our short online survey – this will help us find out what you think to the new site, as well as your thoughts on our other sites. It’s anonymous – none of your personal details are shared with us, so you can be completely honest!

Click here to take part in the survey.

Thank you in advance to those who complete the survey.

New links – we need your help!

The links that used to go to our old site will no longer work (for example, our old homepage used to be unlock.devchd.com/main.aspx and this no longer works).

In the coming days and weeks, we’ll be targeting websites and organisations that still have links to our old site, and asking them to update their links to our new site.

If you know of anybody that links to our site, we’ve provided a list below of some of the most popular parts of our old site, and where they can now be found on the new site. It would be great if you could share this around, or let us know of any out of date links that are being used elsewhere by emailing us at admin@unlock.org.uk:

• Home page – unlock.devchd.com 
• Information/advice as somebody with a conviction? Try our Information Hub – some of the more popular areas include:
  Rehabilitation of Offenders Act
  Disclosure & Barring Service checks / filtering / eligibility
  Specific professions / areas of work
  Insurance information
  Travel abroad
  Information on sexual offences
  Ways to find out about your criminal record
• Support as an employer? Visit our section for employers
• Support as a practitioner? Visit our section for practitioners
• A news or media article? Visit our news section
• Opportunities to volunteer, or ways to donate? Visit our get involved section.
• Our contact details? Visit our contact us section

We would usually recommend you use unlock.devchd.com when linking to our site, as deeper links are subject to change in the future.