Being out of work can hit people’s confidence in many ways, especially if it was your fault, such as being dismissed. But trying to enter the job market after a spell in prison can be a particularly hard task.

If this is the situation you face right now after being released, or it soon will be with your time inside coming towards an end, the prospect may seem daunting. Depending on the reason you ended up behind bars, you may be disqualified from continuing your previous work, while undoubtedly some employers would baulk at employing someone with a criminal record.

However, that does not mean you don’t have a chance, because it is widely recognised that the best way to rehabilitate offenders after release is to enable them to make a success of life, not least by getting regular, stable work.

Indeed, this is why there are various bodies and charities set up to help, from the Princes’ Trust to the Prison Service’s own New Futures Network, which works with employers who are specifically willing to take on ex-offenders, not lease those with skills that are in short supply. 

Our training will seek to take things a bit further by marrying up the building-up of skills and training with the importance if building up personal confidence after an experience that will have left you feeling low.

The biggest barrier may actually not be skills or the attitude of employers, but your own self-esteem. This is bound to have taken a heavy blow through the circumstances you have gone through. However much you may bear personal responsibility for being in such a situation, when you walk out those gates the time for punishment is over. Now is time to bounce back.

By getting training that bolsters personal confidence as well as practical skills, you can start to truly rebuild your life, enabling you to be a reformed person who makes a positive contribution to society and creates a new, better life.