A new programme entitled Past, Present & Your Future currently funded by The National Lottery, Awards for All and quality assured through the AIM Groups ‘Quality Mark’ is a unique and proving to be successful two-day course.

The course is designed specifically to equip people who have a conviction to better understand their past convictions and its potential implications in relation to finding employment. The course prepares learner to enter the world of work by providing specialist employability advice with the aim of breaking the cycle of re-offending and the objective of enabling participants positively contribute to the local community and economy. The programme covers all conviction types.

A flexible approach

The majority of the courses are run on a one-2-one basis in a relaxed, informal but safe environment which ensures participants can talk openly due to the nature of their offences and restrictions whether they be Military and Civil.

The course is fully assured by AIM Group’s Quality Mark, our formal, certificated endorsement of the  quality of training offered by an employer or training organisation.

The course is designed to give learners:

• A better understanding of their circumstances, convictions and licences and an explanation of DBS and employment restrictions, giving the learner confidence and motivation to move forward in society in general and to avoid re-offending.
• Tools to overcome barriers to personal and work problems. Participants are enabled to take personal ownership of the steps to progress which only goes to further enhance their confidence and motivation and often gives learners the sense of personal positive achievement and success that they may never have felt before.
• Support to find employment with hints, tips, tricks, and advice. Actes Trust are able to share expertise gained from many years’ experiences of delivering employability initiatives, including appropriate ways of disclosing convictions to employers and finding friendly employers who are prepared to employ and work with people with convictions.

The course is receiving great feedback from referrers from a wide range of agencies and more recently from HM Prison Service as a way of assisting with their resettlement programme.

The initial pilot has resulted in good positive outcomes for learners with 30% of participants progressing to employment and this is expected to increase as the course progresses over time. The level of increased self-confidence and motivation not re-offend has been immeasurable to individual participants with benefits reported by local support services and local communities.