Introducing HACRO WorkAbility

Nov 16, 2017

What is WorkAbility?

WorkAbility is a new HACRO initiative for supporting ex-offender employment and reducing their likelihood of re-offending.

It is a partnership between the public sector (National Probation Service), private sector (BeNCH CRC), and voluntary sectors. Charity partners are WEA – the UK’s largest voluntary sector adult education provider in England and Scotland; Emmaus St Albans – a charity providing formerly homeless people with a safe home environment and opportunities for ex-offender employment and HACRO – the Hertfordshire charity for care and resettlement of offenders.

HACRO is very grateful to the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hertfordshire who has provided a grant supporting the WorkAbility Pilot Project, and to Hertfordshire County Council for funding laptop computers to help ex-offender employment opportunities.

What does HACRO WorkAbility do?

We know that ex-offenders in work are much less likely to re-offend. But ex-offenders must be ready in themselves to work before they can realistically get, let alone stay in, a job.

 WorkAbility aims to do two things:

  1. Improve the work-readiness of offenders through training as part of their sentence in the community.
  1. Work with local Hertfordshire employers to increase their readiness to employ ex-offenders. We hope to persuade a number of employers to offer work experience placements to our trainees, so that employers get an extended opportunity to assess the trainee and their suitability for a job vacancy.

 

Summing up WorkAbility, Yasmin Batliwala, President of HACRO, said, “Supporting employment for ex-offenders is one of HACRO’s key themes, because people in work are much less likely to re-offend. The support for WorkAbility – from the Police and Crime Commissioner, from BeNCH CRC and from our partners in Emmaus, the WEA and the University of Hertfordshire – backs this up. We look forward to helping people get from unpaid work sentences into real paid work. This project can make Hertfordshire a safer place.”