Industry Panel: No Going Back – Opportunities for Ex-Offenders withing the Cleaning and FM sectors
Rehabilitation of ex-offenders is a key factor in preventing re-offending. Finding opportunities to build a career – often following on from training received whilst incarcerated – brings significant benefits. This expert panel will look at the role the cleaning and FM sectors can play in finding a rewarding and progressive career path for a sector of the workforce that is often overlooked.
Session Speakers
Sam Worden has been working in the cleaning industry for 25 years, both across sales and operations - delivering for national and global client brands.
In 2023 she left her role as Sales Director for a large cleaning contractor as she wanted to deliver a business with a more meaningful purpose and support smaller businesses get bigger and better. Sam joined NGB Clean as COO in 2024 and has supported the business in its delivery of commercial cleaning with a mission to support men and women who have experienced the criminal justice system in an effort to reduce reoffending.
She spends time mentoring and training young entrepreneurs who run their own smaller cleaning companies and has a specific interest in providing career opportunities in the biohazard area of the cleaning sector.
As a business, NGB Clean delivers with a focus on sustainability and has also recently launched Ride, Recycle, Repeat - providing an inner tube and tyre recycling service to the corporate world, at the same time as generating funding to provide training for prison leavers.
With 55 years’ experience in the cleaning sector and a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Environmental Cleaners, Barrie Torbett is a co-founder of No Going Back and NGB Clean, with a mission is to deliver training and job opportunities in the FM sector targeted at reducing re-offending.
As an ex-offender, Michael Chapman has turned his life around to build a successful cleaning and maintenance business.
Through hard work, integrity and dedication, he is steadily growing his company, creating opportunities for others, and proving that second chances lead to strong results and lasting change.
Adam Williams, Managing Director & Co-Founder of The Green Block, is a commercially astute, versatile operational strategist and turnaround expert.
He combines elevated levels of commercial and accounting acumen, coupled with 30 years of operational delivery experience in heavily resourced, tight margined businesses. He has wide experience delivering cost saving, efficiency, business transformation, technology evaluation and vendor selection projects across the UK, Europe and the USA.
Dominic Headley FRSA is the UK’s foremost expert on criminal record disclosure and safer employment.
He provides expert advice, support and training to employers, and authored ‘Recruiting Safely: A Practical Guide to Employing People with Convictions’.
Dominic also served on the Mind the Gap Project Board, a CITB-commissioned initiative creating employment pathways for people with convictions in the built environment sector
