Asset Skills Team Clean Challenge success - Matt's story

2010

Three years ago, Matt was ruled by his drug addiction. He had left university without completing his degree, had dabbled in Class A substances with an old friend and within months had become hooked on heroin. He fell out with his family and had sunk so low he committed a street robbery to fund his habit, a crime that landed him in prison for two years.

“There was no excuse for my crime or my addiction,” he says. “I had not suffered terrible trauma in my life and had a loving, supportive family. I was just young and stupid and started experimenting with drugs without any idea how bad things could get. I feel awful about what I did.”

During his time spent behind bars at Lindholme Prison, Matt entered drug rehabilitation and pledged to his family and to himself he would stay out of trouble on his release. His number one incentive was to be reunited with his little niece and nephew, whom he had been barred from seeing at the height of his addiction.

In prison, Matt attended a course run by the British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc) in cleaning skills. Contrary to general perceptions, cleaning is an area that requires well skilled staff to tackle a number of new demands. For instance, there are now strict systems in place with certain cleaning jobs such as ‘deep cleans’, the methods used in the fight against hospital superbugs. There are also a number of new environmental regulations that have changed the nature of a cleaner’s work and placed new expectations onto their shoulders. It is important that cleaners have an understanding of literacy and numeracy – mixing the wrong quantities of chemical solutions together can be toxic.

The training gave Matt an awareness of the different aspects to cleaning that he had not considered before and when he asked to represent Lindholme in a national skills competition, he was a willing participant.

“I enjoyed taking part in the contest. It was enjoyable and I made some excellent contacts.”

That competition was the Team Clean Challenge, run by Asset Skills, the Sector Skills Council for the cleaning industry. There are two strands – an open one for employers across the UK and a prisons’ strand. Most prisons are cleaned by inmates who are serving time and there are excellent training facilities available within them.

In 2009 Matt won the BICSc Outstanding Student of the Year Award and through the Team Clean Challenge he was introduced to a local cleaning employer. On his release from prison he went for an interview and was given a job.

“I never thought cleaning would be rewarding in terms of the sort of work I’m doing,” he says. “But my particular job has so much variety involved and my employer places a lot of trust in me. That has given me a new confidence to succeed and determination to not let people down. I love this job – no day is the same and I’ve already been offered a new job, which I turned down because I want to show loyalty to my employer who gave me this chance.

“My brother has allowed me to have contact with my niece and nephew again which is such a big, uplifting part of my life – I want to do well for them.”