Siobhán Cafferty

Episode: Siobhán Cafferty, Social Enterprise Project Manager for the Irish criminal justice sector
Siobhán speaks with Hogai about her path to becoming involved in advocating for those with a criminal past, the stigmas faced and the lack of self confidence many feel when attempting to find employment, as well as major logistical barriers when attempting to start their own business. She discusses how employers could take a more open-minded hiring approach, to see people for their potential and not just their past.

Siobhán Cafferty is currently the Funder Liaison & Business Delivery Manager, with a special interest in social enterprise and innovation, working in Pobal. Until the end of 2023, Siobhán was the Social Enterprise Project Manager for the Criminal Justice Sector in Ireland working on behalf of the Department of Justice. Having developed the ‘Working to Change social enterprise and employment strategy 2021- 2023’ for the Department, she led out on its implementation. Siobhán is dedicated to improving the infrastructure to support social enterprises to ensure those furthest from the labour market are afforded the opportunity to work. In recognition of her work, Siobhán was named on the Top 100 list of women in social enterprise 2022 in Europe as part of the Euclid Network. 

Prior to these roles, Siobhán was the CEO of the Bridge Project, a Probation funded community-based organisation working with adult male violent offenders in the Liberties, Dublin. Siobhán has dedicated her career to ensuring those most marginalised from education and employment, for whatever reason, are afforded opportunities to make sustainable changes to their lives and become active citizens.

Open Mic is a new podcast presented by the Open Doors Initiative which explores the challenges and opportunities of the working world from the perspectives of marginalised communities. The podcast takes the form of short interview segments with individuals who will share their lived experiences and insights.

Guest Host
Introducing Hogai asefi Wardak. Born in Kabul Afghanistan in 2001, the youngest of her family, with 4 sisters and 2 brothers. A family where she could see her older sisters not getting what they wanted in their lives, not reaching their wishes and goals, because her father had never allowed or permitted, and never had an open mind for women to engage, work and participate in community, at that time in their country. 

In 2016, she graduated from high school and was enrolled in Kabul University. She started working with Zan TV, which is a specialized tv network for women. She started to host programmes dealing with Women’s empowerment, Women and sports and various social programmes. 

She also established an educational community for children, to help women and youngsters to get jobs, by joining POOHA NGO and worked with NATO. She’s still working with Zan TV on screen.

Open Doors Initiative

• ODI’s key mission is to enable equitable access to employment for marginalised people
• We create pathways to work through training, education, employment and entrepreneurship.
• Collaborative network of over 125 partner organisations
• Together we carry out training, work experience, mentoring, research and reduce barriers for people who are marginalised
• We helped nearly 74,000 people on pathways to work in five years

Visit https://opendoorsinitiative.ie for more information and follow us on social media including&

Transcript

Hello everyone welcome to Open Mic podcast presented by the Open Doors Initiative which explores the challenge and opportunities of the Working World from the perspectives of marginalised communities the podcast will take the form of short interview segments with individuals who will share their life experiences and insights my name is Hogai asefi Wardak hosting the Open Mic podcast the podcast will be available from the Open Doors website and from different podcast streaming providers it will be promoted online through social media and our member companies and supporting partners today we have a guest and um Siobhan Cafferty social enterprise project manager for the Irish criminal justice sector welcome Siobhan thank you very much how are you I'm good it's probably one of the longest uh job titles yeah around yes that's what I do yeah thanks a million for joining us thanks for coming here thank you yeah so Siobhan tell us about yourself how did you get started in the area of work how did I get started it's probably it's a long story and I kind of get into it by chance um I'm the only one in my family who kind of does the work that I do um my family have run businesses so there was always that anticipation that I'd go into business or it like my brothers but now black sheep of the family so I went down the social services route um and actually was training to be a social worker and I remember having one of the lectures out in UCD I kind of wasn't really sitting well with me and I'm kind of going I remember going up to the lecture afterwards and believe it or not I was really quite shy at the time uh people don't really believe that now but I went up to the lecturer afterwards and I was just like lots of questions and she gave me the best piece of advice she said why don't you go take a year out work in the community and see what you want to be and maybe social work will be it or maybe it'll be something else that's what I did and then basically that was 20 oh my God nearly 30 years ago don't tell any me do that um and I went and I worked in adult education in the North Inner City of Dublin and and then moved from there into Addiction Services nice and then from there to work with members of the Traveller community and then more recently into the criminal justice sector so I've kind of spanned a lot of yeah lots ofs yeah lots lots of different groups lots of I suppose difficulties that that many of those groups shared yeah um Siobhan so we will talk about the criminal histories for the people like what is the biggest barriers for those that they have the criminal past and they are looking for employment there are many barriers unfortunately um and if I it's almost very hard to kind of put them into a list of list of order I've been very privileged to work with people who've been through the system um for the past 15 15 years or so so kind of I feel like I'm speaking on their behalf when really they're more than capable of speaking themselves however if I can just kind of the probably the top barrier is a gap in the CV is huge we have an employees market at the moment we have employers spending a lot of money on finders fees to recruitment companies but having a gap on a CV is something that actually it's very difficult to fill if you spend three four five years in prison um however those three four five years in prison in most cases have been spent upskilling like availing of education classes really doing everything that you can to better yourself and to move your away move yourself away from your criminal past however when you come out you still have that gap in your CV so from an employer's point of view if you've got two three four people who have the same type of qualifications if you've got someone with a gap on their CV you're you generally tend to bypass that person or that person has to really stand out as being exceptional yeah and when you've got someone who's been through the criminal justice system often their belief in themselves their self worth is very low yeah so enabling that person to stand out above and beyond the others who have the same type of qualifications can be quite difficult because the individual in many cases doesn't believe that they're that they're that someone wants to employ them so therefore they don't necessarily sell themselves as best they can so there's a lot of work that has to happen but there's numerous barriers um for people getting into employment at the moment and unfortunately they've been there for quite a long time and the work that I do is to try and reduce those barriers down and one of the things I would say is that there are an off of employers now at the moment who are open to recruiting people talented people who do have a criminal past I think the idea of second chances of re-engaging back in society and learning from those people as I said there are a number of employers that I work with that are very open to that um but again it's making sure that we get that match right and making sure that people with the criminal histories know that actually they can have that choice to go forward for work so it means like uh there is a chance and way for the people with criminal past to be a successful again yeah yes absolutely I think one one of the key pieces for people who have been through a system like that as many cases they've gone into the system in the first place because of potential trauma as a child uh early bereavement addiction issues within the family homelessness so they ending up in the criminal justice system is sometimes an end result of all of those issues coming together but what that has given for those individuals unfortunately in a way is a level of resilience that you and I and other people that don't have those type of experience that we we just don't have that level of resilience sometimes or problem solving so when we start to translate that into employment skills all of a sudden that person goes from someone who has had a criminal past to someone who actually is worthy and should be in some cases uh taken in and given that second chance as you describe got it uh like there should be lots of people that they had criminal past and they want to start their business so what barriers they will face again a bit similar to employment and the work that I do and have been doing over the past few years is to try and support people with criminal histories into a whole range of different types of work with entrepreneurship and self-employment being just one option and an awful lot of people um have incredible ideas about what their business should be how they can move forward and in many cases how they can can contribute to society and help others like in their in their shoes one of the biggest is issues that they face though unfortunately is Insurance you know um public liability insurance employers Insurance you know if you have a criminal record and again this is back to the same issues if you you have a gap on your CV uh getting insurance for your business can be incredibly difficult which means then that person who has this great idea about setting up a business that they often then have to go around roundabout in a different way to try and get that insurance done for their business and that in itself is really tricky we have been trying to address that there are some smaller kind of insurance brokers that will deal with people on a case-by-case basis but it is an issue that is is there it has it is causing difficulties for people to get into that area of self-employment however there are a number of very successful people who have criminal histories who run their own businesses and have managed to overcome great uh so there is lots of people that they had the criminal past and they are just looking for those doors that help them you know the way and to guide them like if you mentioned some that they can contact or they can go there I mean for people with a criminal past um in my experience often when they've done the work on themselves when they believe that actually they're worthy of being employed or being an employer yeah then all of a sudden doors start to open the the dialogue the discussion is very different however what I would say is I I've been doing a lot of work with the Department of Social protection yeah and their case managers on the ground in the offices or or their contracted services when a person and it can be very difficult to do this though that's the thing is when a person says to a complete stranger in many cases yeah I do have a criminal past I know that's going to make it trick tricky for you who's here to help me find work however I want to be open and honest with you I do have a criminal past but I really want to change and this is what I've done since since that time you know I think that you know as I said it's it's that constant re-exposing of yourself that this is my past it could be 20 years ago but all about the time all about the time and I think you know so there are a lot of lot of agencies out there there's one in particular that springs to mind that's very new um Spéire Nua um I'm not so sure if you're familiar with that but great idea and Quinn uh set that up um and and it's just an absolutely fantastic service it changes how we see people with a criminal past and I'm I'm consciously using the word past because everybody has a past in some cases some people have a criminal past but it's in the past for those people that want to move on so they should have a good present yes they need to have the good present they need to have the good present they need to be able to look to the future and they need to not allow their past to limit them themselves because when they do that others often generally tend to do that too so I think that as I said Spéire and know it they actually uh work with individuals who've been through the system to make sure that actually everything that they've done yeah to distance themselves from the past is recorded is down almost like a counterbalance to the to the Garda vetting form the vetting form it's just every every negative thing that you've done that has resulted in a criminal charge yeah that's what employers some employers get like I wouldn't want a list of stuff like that against me whereas the um recognition of prior learning um or the certificate of uh commitment to change the Spéire Nua do that's very much about saying this is what I've done this is my commitment to change so when an employer gets that they get the Garda vetting form yeah which in many cases may have been many years before and then they also get that certificate of commitment to change so it kind of outweighs in many cases what has been in the past and as you said it brings it to the present yeah and uh Siobhan if I ask you that uh how long it will take to show yourself and to be shine in society to prepare yourself for future is there any limitation of time or no no there isn't um you know everybody we often describe people with offenses as ex prisoners offenders ex offend you know unfortunately that term for many many people doesn't go you know so I think unfortunately it is it's it's to use the expression tarring everybody with the one brush you know someone who has tax offenses someone who has driving offenses is known as an offender right the way up to someone who's caused really heinous crimes and you know and has unfortunately potentially taken the life of someone that label applies to everybody so there is no one-size fits-all when working with um this particular cohort of people um and probably nor should there be I think as you and I are different as everybody else in this room is different everybody needs and deserves that chance to be a to be seen for who they are for who's who that person is sitting in front of me yeah or or the employer more so so I think that you know there is no there is no time frame on that and we do have spent conviction leg legislation um that after a period of time a charge uh can be wiped from your record it's very limited there is changes obviously coming to that now over the next period of time it will still remain quite limited so effectively I mean for someone who's committed a crime when they're 18 19 that can stay with them for a long long period of time Siobhan as a last question is there any support for the people with the criminal past that um after release from government is there any support available there are there are a number of it depends if someone is released from prison yeah and they're on a probation sanction a community sanction they can avail of the supports of one of 58 community uh probation funded Community projects they're dotted all all around the country and they will work with that individual in many cases to to upskill continue their education upskill them um and also to assist them to get into work there's also organizations like AISIO there's also organizations like the Open Doors Initiative super people to make that next step into education or training um and as I said then there's also the state Services uh like the department of social protection however they're not um they don't have specialized support teams just specifically for people with criminal histories so it's it's that awareness that actually you know that some people will need which is someone coming with a criminal record there is that barrier that's there for them even for going into third level education a uh and or into employment so knowing how uh to work with an individual who does have a criminal past is hugely important and if I ask you for your own message to those people that they had criminal past and they want to my own message good question to end on my own message will be do not give up hope okay when we have a life of hopelessness everything is bleak we can't see the door we can see the opportunities that are in front of us I would say reach out do not be afraid to ask for help it is probably one of the most difficult things for people to do is ask for help however people like to be asked for to help someone so I think ask for help do not give up hope keep going do everything that you can while you're in prison or on the preparation project to better yourself and to believe in yourself yeah so then others can believe you too that's so good it was an amazing message thanks a million Siobhan for coming here thank you very much yeah thank you thanks everyone for listening us we hope you found the series helpful please follow us online at open doors work on Instagram LinkedIn and Twitter thanks a million