About us
Recruitment built on second chances and sound business
We believe access to good work is the firmest foundation anyone can have — and that hiring well and hiring fairly are the same thing.
About us
We believe access to good work is the firmest foundation anyone can have — and that hiring well and hiring fairly are the same thing.
Our mission
Firm Foundation Recruitment is a social enterprise. We exist to place people on Release on Temporary Licence into meaningful, paid work before release — and to make that as simple, safe and rewarding as possible for the employers who hire them.
Every placement we make is designed to do two things at once: build a person’s route to a stable future, and solve a real recruitment need for a business. We measure our success not just in roles filled, but in lives changed and reoffending prevented.
The basics
Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) allows risk-assessed prisoners to leave prison temporarily — including to take up paid employment in the community before their release date.
ROTL is granted only after a rigorous risk assessment by the prison. Candidates are approved as suitable to work in the community.
People work genuine jobs for genuine pay, gaining current experience, references and routines that carry through to release.
Employment before and after release is one of the strongest factors in reducing reoffending — better for people and the public.
Our model
As a registered Community Interest Company (CIC), our purpose comes first — and it’s locked in. We operate under an asset lock, which means our assets and every penny of surplus are legally committed to our social mission: reinvested into supporting more people into work and strengthening the partnerships that make placements succeed. Profit is never extracted for private gain.
As a CIC, social impact is our legal reason for existing — written into our governing structure, not just our values.
We work hand-in-hand with prisons, resettlement teams, charities and employers to make placements stick.
We track outcomes transparently so funders and partners can see the difference their support makes.
Our founder
Four years in a Peruvian jail changed the direction of my life. When I was repatriated to the UK, I made a decision: I would turn things around, and I would help others avoid the mistakes I’d made.
I enrolled on a BA (Hons) in Business Administration with the Open University almost immediately, determined to use my time constructively rather than let it pass. It wasn’t easy studying in those circumstances, but I was determined to succeed. I was also selected as a Longford Trust Scholar, which gave me a mentor and additional support to help me stay the course.
Progressing to open conditions gave me access to the Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) programme, and it was there that I saw, first-hand, the real difference employment can make as a route back into the community. I worked for a recruitment agency during that time whose intentions were good, but which had no clear social objectives and no real way of measuring the impact it was having.
That gap is what led me to start Firm Foundation Recruitment — a social enterprise recruitment agency built specifically for ROTL candidates, combining my own lived experience with what I learned through my degree to deliver something with genuine, measurable impact on reoffending. The idea was recognised with the Open University’s Open Business Creators Award for Social Enterprise Innovation, which gave us the capital to get started.
I bring two decades of people-facing experience — from running my own business in Brazil to leading hospitality teams — but it’s the years I spent on the other side of the employment gap that drive everything we do here. I know what a fair chance is worth, and I started FFR to make sure more people get one.
Founder, Firm Foundation Recruitment
Employers, funders and partner organisations all have a role to play. Let’s explore how we can work together.