Outside/In: Working with Convictions

This report, which sets out the findings from a programme of work that was commissioned as part of NHS England’s Inclusive Workforce Programme, demonstrates how lived experience insights can help identify solutions to long term, challenging problems for more inclusive employment. 

Employment outcomes for individuals with criminal convictions remain a significant challenge in the UK for example, over 50% of people under the supervision of probation are unemployed and only 17% of ex-offenders manage to get a job within a year of release from prison. These figures matter because employment is one of the key factors that supports successful reintegration back into society after leaving prison and helps prevents reoffending.

The challenges to improving employment for this group and overcoming the many systemic barriers that they face including stigma, discrimination and exclusion appear immense, but are also within the gift of any organisation that can offer good employment, to resolve. The potential benefits are significant, not least because of the numbers of people that this affects but also in terms of wider societal gains in reducing offending, reducing health inequalities, and supporting economic renewal.

The report provides a way to address these issues for those who have experience of the criminal justice system, but the principles involved and the solutions that have been developed through peer research are relevant for all those seeking more inclusive employment. The true value of this is in having a considered and robust approach to the involvement and development of people with lived experience, an approach that can be scaled up and applied across a range of priority areas but most importantly in reducing health inequalities and supporting economic growth.

The findings from this programme are being used within the wider Clacton Place model to address system responses to reducing health inequalities through employment. This includes using the lived experience evidence to inform action planning and co-ordination as part of the collective lived experience of local residents and service users.

READ THE FULL REPORT

To read the full report and to download a copy of the pdf please click on the link below.