+xwhat help do the probation office offer to get you back into work - do they do offer training courses etc as mine hasnt rely offered anything rather than an informal chat every few weeks. Hi Rufus, I am sorry to say my experience highlighted many issues with this element of the Probation Office responsibilities towards the "rehabilitation" of ex-offenders. I do not wish to point all the blame on the individual officers as they have many factors hindering any approach they may wish to take. Time, workload or their interest, are important factors and dependant on the relationship between the "supervisor" and the "offender". In the Probation Office I attended, the walls were covered in posters showing schemes but unfortunately they were mostly for a different gender, age group, type of offence etc, but mostly out of date. My Probation Officer's support was founded on "how do you declare your offence?" or "The reason you did not get the job is because your approach is wrong!" He would try to offer advice (not vacancies) by using his past experience as a recruiter; unfortunately he refused to agree that the skills sets for the roles he said he had the experience of, were not relevant for my skill set or the type of roles I worked in. My experience of recruiting for "higher skilled" positions caused a conflict between us, as to him, it left him in a position of not being the "alpha". Especially in the current scenario, history indicates that training might be one of the first items cut from a budget. Please do not let this dismay you though. Make your own training schemes!
Do this by listing your present skills and experiences. Then think of the role titles you would like to do and list the skills / experience needed to do these roles.
Remember that skills and experience are what they called transferable! This means you should look and no matter how slim the linkage between them is it is the foundation for improving on. Think how many roles need good maths. I often recruited someone not because they had the "correct skills", but they had a skill that could be enhanced and used. this also showed the employee I supported them so gained their loyalty.
You could Google "mind map example" for examples of linking items together in a diagrammatic way to see things easier..
I am sure you have already started looking at what the Job center offers, vacancies etc, so first I would suggest apply and accept interviews for any role that will look at you. I say this because if you get an interview you will start to get confident in the manner you declare and the information you give. If you get the job then it is something that you can write on your CV and will give other prospective employers confidence in you when they consider you.
Remember in our situation, it is more likely we have to start somewhere/anywhere and work harder to progress that others.
Good luck and remember it is not selfish to concentrate of ensuring you are safe first because, because only then you are able to make others safe!
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.
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