“I’d been in prison for 17 years. As you can imagine, it was extremely hard for me to find a job, even when I found jobs that I was perhaps over-qualified for, I couldn’t get in. Not with a criminal history.”

For two and a half years after her release, Liz applied for everything from warehouses to chicken factories. Every time, the process ended the same way. “I’d get an interview, they’d say I’d be great, then ask for a police check. I wasn’t going to hand them a piece of paper with my history, so I never got past that stage.”

Then she heard a story about Beacon Laundry on the ABC. “It was Mel talking about giving people with barriers a job. I jumped on my laptop straight away and emailed them. I said, ‘I’ve been in jail, I love what you do, can I come work for you?”

That email led to Liz being onboarded and nearly a year later, she is still working at Beacon.

“I actually got the interview because of my history, I could be upfront from the beginning. It’s never been an issue.”

Liz now works as a laundry operator. “It’s steady work and it suits me. I can just put my head down and bum up and get on with it.”

The difference, she says, is the crew. “It’s the people. There’s no hierarchy, there is no difference between the CEO and us on the floor. The understanding and empathy is remarkable… sometimes it brings you to tears. It’s my happy place.”

“The best thing Beacon has given me is the ability to forgive myself. After prison, you carry shame. I couldn’t look in the mirror. But after a couple of months here, I realised I liked myself again. When you feel that, you show up differently – for your family, for yourself.”

“When I was in jail, a lot of officers, a lot of support staff said to me, what do you want to do when you get out of jail? And the only thing that I wanted to do was to be a better grandmother, than I was a mother.”

“You’re not a great mother if you leave your family for 17 years, you know. And so, I’ve kind of achieved that. I’m like a super nanna now, which is really good.”

Read more stories like Liz’s in Beacon Bangalow’s FY24/25 Impact Report.