Breaking Barriers

The Building Futures program has been working closely with the local job centres in Buckinghamshire to develop an employability course that supports ex-offenders. In August 2023 we delivered our first course, which was facilitated by our partner Oasis at their premises in High Wycombe.

The reception to the course by the participants was very positive and they fed back their appreciation of how we addressed the false perceptions and misunderstandings of ex-offenders by employers. We would like to thank the input of Unlock for providing us their knowledge which helped greatly in the successful delivery of the course, some of which we’d like to share below:

• Spent convictions do need to be disclosed on job applications for the majority of jobs. To find out if you need to declare your conviction you can use the following website: Disclosure Calculator - Unlock
• Not all cautions or spent convictions will show on a DBS check depending on the type of DBS required, the nature of the conviction and the requirements of the role. This is called DBS filtering and you can read more about it on the government website Filtering rules for DBS certificates - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• Unlock provides a list of friendly employers Looking for friendly employers - Unlock
• You must declare unspent convictions when asked, or you may be dismissed by your employer if this is found out at a later date. Unlock recommends you declare unspent convictions with a potential employer when meeting face-to-face.

Everyone has the right to improve their life and a criminal conviction should not be a barrier for you. If you are worried about how your caution or conviction may stop you from getting a job, please get in touch.

Email the Building Futures Team

 

For MoJ and Police clients wishing to explore services used to deliver Breaking Barriers, Adviza is accessible via the 'Lite Touch' procurement method on PQQ 205 Probation Dynamic Framework DF2 - Education Training and Employment. 

If you wish to discuss this further, please contact us.

 

24th August 2023