Sodexo Staring Fresh: Breaking down barriers to employment for ex-offenders

Challenge

127 people leave UK prisons each day. 38% of adults released reoffend.

Sodexo manages seven prisons in the UK on behalf of the MoJ and SPS, and supports the rehabilitation of ex-offenders. Sodexo is itself committed to filling 5% of appropriate job opportunities with ex-offenders.
Sodexo wanted to lend its voice and experience to advocate for the recruitment of ex-offenders, remove perceived hiring barriers and go a step further to provide practical steps.

Approach

Sodexo devised the campaign territory, which Brands2Life developed into the ‘Starting Fresh’ platform supported by research, strategy, creative, media relations and public affairs.

Starting Fresh

To drive awareness of our campaign, we built a hub on Sodexo’s website to be the primary destination for target audiences. Research results drove a targeted media and broadcast plan, a hero video helped to drive audiences to our hub via social.

Finally, we created a toolkit for MPs to encourage businesses to employ ex-offenders.

IMPACT

More than 700 ex-offenders have been recruited as a direct result of Starting Fresh activity, with high street brands contacting Sodexo for support.
50+ articles have been placed in targeted titles, with our public affairs team engaging with 15 political stakeholders who have taken an active interest in the initiative and offered their support.
‘Starting Fresh’ continues to generate enquiries from brands on their recruitment journeys.

Sodexo

Responsible Business · Earned Media Relations

Sodexo Staring Fresh: Breaking down barriers to employment for ex-offenders

Challenge

Approach

IMPACT

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