A Clean Slate

Scarborough – ESF

Clean Slate Solutions

This project will support people with a past conviction into employment or training/education through a programme of tailored community support mentoring.  Covering Barrowcliff, Eastfield and Scarborough Town, mentors offer holistic wraparound care lifting barriers to employment in these areas acknowledged to have high levels of deprivation

Positive outcomes are achieved by linking people with past convictions (already living locally) with relevant agencies addressing housing, debt and recovery from addiction services, together with basic supplies from foodbanks and the opportunity for family liaison.

The project will equip participants with the skills and support they lack through training, employability workshops, CV writing and interview skills. Participants engage in vocational training e.g. around digital skills, basic Maths and English also feeding into specific industry training.

Thanks to the projects sympathetic employer network, at interview, participants have a genuine employment opportunity knowing the difficult conversation about past convictions has already been covered.

Those in need are referred from North Yorkshire Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) and Clean Slate Solutions are in the early stages of a relationship with Scarborough Job Centre.  The work is underpinned by existing referral arrangements with local housing providers, Jubilee Debt Advice, NY Horizons, foodbanks and churches.

Employment is the single biggest factor in preventing reoffending. The national reoffending rate is 56% yet the CSS rate is just 4%.  Acknowledging the existing work of Clinks, APM and Offploy the added value is a more employer focussed approach, with direct already proven relationships into local employers willing to offer participants genuine paid employment.