We don’t believe in second chances; we believe in another chance. This means that we are all capable of offending, reoffending and then breaking the law some more. We understand people are not perfect, yet having a job can significantly reduce reoffending and break the cycle of crime.
We love what we do and formed this organisation with the sole intention to make society safer. We can only make society safer if we support individuals to feel a part of society.
Our stakeholders may experience this value in different ways, but it all comes down to being a part of the same ecosystem; the same community.
Commissioners
We want to be a part of your team. You might find us seated in your offices, attending your team parties and joining you on the fun runs. This is because we believe in being a part of the same rehabilitative community as our commissioners. It is really important that our candidates simultaneously see us as a part of and independent of our commissioners. We believe this means having great relationships between our colleagues, benefitting from a shared infrastructure and shared best practices.
We will also work with our commissioners to support our colleagues who may have criminal convictions to be a part of this community in a way that is both safe and fair.
Colleagues
We practise what we preach and are proud that our work community is made of people with and without criminal convictions. This links closely to our ‘expertise through experience value’.
We call on our colleagues to set the example of community by following all of our values and welcoming both people with and without convictions into our team. We will always hire on skill and experience over conviction so we can all rest assured the people around us are the best people to achieve our mission of reducing reoffending and making society, our community, safer.
Candidates
When you access our service, you become a member of our community. This means that we will treat you with the respect and dignity you deserve, regardless of your past. We are here to support you in securing employment, move people away from crime and contribute to society.
We are a team of professionals who aim to provide the right balance of compassion and straight talking through our ‘care enough to confront value’. You will find we’re eager to support you to address your barriers to employment and help you secure your job, as this is an incredible positive representation of the wider community of people with criminal convictions. We are keen to show employers that people with criminal convictions do deserve another chance; that they are capable of being valuable colleagues and that they want to contribute to society.
We believe so much in a sense of community that we are registered as a ‘Community Interest Company’. Our entire reason for forming, our entire mission, is about our community as we look to reduce reoffending and make society safer.
Overall
We are proud of what we have learnt and achieved in our four years of service, but we recognise we still have a long way to go until we’re a sector leader in being a community. If you have any thoughts on how we could improve our community, please email us on website@offploy.org. You can read more about our other values here.