Pathways to work

The Priory Group are providing services for people on employment and support allowance (previously known as incapacity benefit) with mental health problems as part of the Pathways to Work programme.

Nearly 1 million people of the 2.9 million people on employment and support allowance have a mental health problem.

Pathways to Work is part of the Government's Welfare Reform agenda, working in partnership with Jobcentre Plus and which aims to help one million people off employment and support allowance by 2015 and address child poverty.

Priory has been successful in winning contracts with partner organisations Shaw Trust and Seetec to deliver a range of services in Norfolk, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire and the Black Country. The Group's services include a condition management programme, assessments and training partners' employment advisors and case management teams.

Priory's Condition Management Programme is focused around supporting people on employment and support allowance with anxiety, stress and depression. The programme equips people with knowledge, coping skills and peer support that can help enable them to gain and sustain employment whilst living with their health condition.

Comments from those who have completed the course:

• "I've been on a lot of courses and this is one of the best ones. You know sort of health related. Not many are health related."
• "Without this course, nothing would have ever changed."
• "I am starting to look forward to returning to work for the first time.
• "I felt I wasn't unusual about having fears and anxieties about going back to work"
• "Informative, useful and enlightening - they should call it the lightbulb course, by the second week I felt as if there were hundreds of lightbulbs going off!"
• "Life changing."