Building bridges to work: the changing world of employment training and support

InterAct's Bridges to Work programme aims to help adults recovering from mental illness return to work or find employment for the first time. Since its inception in 1995, the programme has helped some 250 people find jobs or go into further education and supported 600 others towards this goal. Paul Edwards describes how recently the focus has switched to early intervention and fast‐tracking people back to work, to prevent the socially disabling effects of long‐term sickness absence.