Working Chance

IN CONVERSATION WITH NATASHA FINLAYSON OBE AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Our Charity Partner, Working Chance, support women with convictions into employment. Join our Lead Case Worker, Farah, in conversation with Natasha to learn more about the challenges faced by female prison leavers.

"What is the best part about working with Working Chance?

We get a lot of inspiring feedback from the women that we work with. It’s lovely to see the way that people can flourish when someone believes in them.

What are the challenges faced by women upon leaving prison and entering the community?

The main challenge that women we work with face is around confidence and self esteem. An awful lot of women have trauma going back to childhood. Often they've got very little self belief due to violent relationships and dysfunctional family backgrounds. Being in Prison doesn’t help with that at all. Often the women we work with believe that they are not entitled to have anything good happen to them and we have to work with them to build that confidence up and change that mindset. Often women experience struggles around children. A lot of times, when women are in custody, their children go into care or are looked after by family. Sometimes women can really struggle to regain custody of their children, which is incredibly stressful. When women who have been through the criminal justice system apply for jobs, they are faced with prejudices. Some employers, even though they don’t say it, feel more uncomfortable with women that have been to prison more so than men because they think the women shouldn’t do bad things. Is the attitude of employers changing? From our market research, we have seen a a significant change in the attitude of employers in 2022. Employers have a better understanding the value people with convictions can bring to the workforce. We’ve increased the number of employers that we work with this year to around 100 nationwide, giving the women we work with more employment options. A lot of different sectors have also been impacted by labour shortages, which has forced employers to be more open minded. One in six people in this country have a criminal record, so it makes sense to see them as people just like anybody else." For the third year in a row, we donated £1 from every 250g bag of our seasonal espresso sold to Working Chance. In 2022, we raised a total of £632. Find out how we are reducing reoffending through coffee.

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