Starting Fresh: Driving career opportunities for people with convictions

Starting Fresh: Driving more career opportunities for people with criminal convictions

Could your business consider recruiting someone with a criminal conviction? Do you have concerns about this? Our Starting Fresh employer toolkit has been produced to address your questions and provides next steps to help you get started.

Download the Starting Fresh Employers Toolkit (PDF opens in new window)

At Sodexo, we have been running prisons in the UK for 30 years and are committed to rehabilitating offenders, treating those in our care with dignity and providing opportunities for purposeful activity.

Our employment, education and rehabilitation services give them the skills, qualifications and support to lead law-abiding lives in their community on release.

Prison-leaver stories

I was always good with hair, and now I’m fully qualified
Read: Emily's story
I want to be working, I want the stability and to provide for my family
Watch: Claire's story
I had no idea you could work full-time in prison until I did it myself
Read: Learn about full-time work in prison

Education, skills training and externally assessed qualifications available in UK prisons

Education facilities in prisons have the same standards and the same focus on results as they do in any educational facility on the other side of the gates. They are inspected by OFSTED to ensure this.

During their time in prison, people have the opportunity to train and study for a broad range of City & Guilds qualifications, GCSEs, A Levels and Open University degrees.

Learn more about some of the vocational skills being taught in our prisons, download the Starting Fresh skills packs:

Education and skills overview | Hair and beauty| Hospitality| Catering | Construction

Rehabilitation to recruitment

One year on: How Starting Fresh is supporting employers and changing lives
Starting Fresh is Sodexo’s initiative to support employers in proactively recruiting trained and qualified ex-offenders. Commitment from organisations and colleagues is plugging skills gaps and keeping lives on track.
Read about Starting Fresh one year on
Resettling prisoners after release: getting ex-offenders into the workforce
Sodexo's Tony Simpson, Justice Operations Director, addresses how upskilling, retraining, and boosting confidence activity across our prisons is supporting prisoners into positive futures.
Find out more about resettling prisoners
Unlocking construction opportunities to reduce re-offending
An initiative developed by the New Futures Network – part of HM Prisons and Probation Service gives prisoners the chance to discuss career opportunities with companies who operate in their release areas.
Read about unlocking New Futures