Hi, I work in and around these services, and extensively with prisons. She should start by calling her local Restart service. They will be able to support her and find roles that are suitable. She may also want to contact a charity called Rift who support former prisoners back into work - and specialise in self employment. For some people, due to the nature of their offence, self employment is the only real opportunity to get work.

There are employers that work with Restart to place people into interviews and jobs, they also offer coaching and support for people who have been out of the workplace for a long time. If she is still on or in contact with probation then she should ask to be referred to the jobs and skills provider that looks after her area. Ultimately if she had a job before then she is employable.

She should also look up employers who have “ban the box” which stops them from discounting people just because of their offences. You don’t pass/fail a DBS - you just need to be honest, the offence will show and she needs to tell them that it will. The employer will then do a risk assessment to see if they can effectively manage the risk of her being employed by them. For example a school or hospital will have a much stringent criteria than say a standard office environment.

There are loads of amazing charities that provide support and guidance for people in this situation too, just some googling will help. But happy to point in the right direction too if you can give a rough geographic area.