Supporting desistance efforts of people with a criminal conviction is best achieved through a partnership approach across all sectors of society. Employment and routes to employment offer meaningful opportunities to people with criminal records to put the past firmly behind them.
One of the major challenges for IASIO’s employment programmes is the financial hardship faced by many of our clients. Many of the people we work with (prisoners and people on probation) are dependent on welfare assistance of one form or another, seldom by choice, which coupled with a criminal conviction makes it more difficult to access opportunities that may be readily available to others.

Quite often, following an intensive guidance and assessment process in which the IASIO Training & Employment Officer (TEO) and client have identified a career path, the cost of accessing the training or equipment necessary to access the opportunity is prohibitive. When this occurs, our TEOs in both our Linkage and GATE Services spend a significant amount of time trying to find a funding source that will allow an IASIO client to move forward.

With your help, we want to ensure that IASIO clients are not prevented from employment opportunities by what is very often a relatively small cost for items such as work boots or clothes, equipment required for training, course fees, transport costs etc.

Whether you’re a business, an employer or a private citizen interested in providing real pathways toward employment, your donation, large or small, will help eradicate the last barrier to progression for those clients who have tried but failed to gain entry due to financial hardship.