An insight into two weeks work experience at User Voice

Jude Jubey
12/8/2013

Speaking at the Criminal Justice Convention 2013

Week 1, Monday

I was in a meeting with Bob Ashford, who is running an organisation called Wipe the Slate Clean. They are trying to get people that have committed a crime years ago that was seen to be a minor offence to have it removed from their history. This I felt was very interesting because it’s one thing that is very close to my heart, because I hope one day I could have my own slate wiped clean.

Later that day I was in a preparation meeting about going to see the MP Jeremy Wright on the rehabilitation of prisoners. This was very interesting because the new plans mean that a lot of things are changing, and I felt that it if the government did it the wrong way things could get much worse.  That meeting went on for a long time, I got to meet council members from all over the country and we all realised that most of the time people are facing the same kind of issues just in different places.

Week 1, Tuesday

We went to the Ministry of Justice and we all made our points to the MP. I felt happy that everyone got a word in, and I hope that he took what we said into consideration, only time will really tell.

Then we went to a meeting at London Probation to talk about what happened and how we felt it went. This was very interesting because I was able to see how everything works and develop a better understanding.

Week 1, Wednesday

I was at a meeting with the head of London Probation, Mark Johnson and Daniel Hutt. They talked about the benefits that User Voice has been able to bring to the trust through elected council members within Probation. 

Then we went to a Cando Coffee meeting with What If, we were looking at the branding and what kind of message Cando want to give out to their customers. Being a social enterprise they have to be very careful because some people don’t know what it is and will think it’s just another charity.

Then we had another meeting right afterwards with one of the board members looking at the structure of User Voice and how the board works, and this gave me a much deeper understanding of how big User Voice really is and how big it’s grown in such a sort time. This for a charity I think is an amazing thing because it just shows how different they are to many of the other organisations that work within the criminal justice system.

Week 2, Monday

I was at the office helping to map out Southwark to make sure that we understand what things are being offered to young people. I enjoyed it because I was able to learn so much about the different organisations within my area.

Week 2, Wednesday

We went to meet the young people at Tower Hamlets Youth Offending Service and we took them for some lunch, and I had a talk with one of the young people about what she wants to do. I showed her that there are apprenticeships that she could get involved in and I called one of my contacts that work in Channel 4 Apprenticeships and she gave me the link to what was left on offer and I passed the information on.  This I hoped would help her to do something really good with her time. There is something about helping people that I enjoy and I really think is vital in life because when you give you feel so much better.

Week 2, Thursday

I was with Mifta and Shauna at Southwark feeding back to the Youth Advisory Group on what I had been getting up to on my work experience and showing them that it really is an amazing door that User Voice opens to you and it’s always about you being able to show people that you are a capable person.

The week was an amazing insight to how User Voice works and how much change they are making to the criminal justice system, and this I think is an amazing thing because it really does need a change and only offenders can stop re-offending. It also showed me that I had the skills to influence people in a positive way to see how by helping us you will be helping so many more people.

I want to thank everyone for giving me the chance to do my work experience at such an amazing place, it really opened my mind and gave me so much energy and drive being around such wonderful and inspirational people.