Islington’s Working Chance – the UK’s only charity helping women with criminal convictions find jobs – has been given £117,000 to pay for a new recruitment worker.

The White Lion Street organisation provides employment services to women in prison, on probation and out in the community, helping them turn their lives around.

Half of the staff have criminal convictions, and the money from the City Corporation’s charitable arm – the City Bridge Trust – will pay for another woman who has left the criminal justice system to become a recruitment consultant. The role will allow the charity to expand its work across the capital.

Working Chance CEO Jocelyn Hillman OBE said: “We are often the only place these women can turn to for help with finding a job and becoming financially independent.

“This grant will mean we can continue to support marginalised women to cross the social divide from lives of exclusion to lives of contribution.”