well, i'm starting to think that my friendship must be some kind of curse, because nobody i know's had an easy time getting back to work and/or getting back on benefits if it doesn't go well! - with the possible exception of our admin guy at work, but i think that has a lot to do with the fact that we're a service user led organisation so we tolerate, nay *embrace* his little quirks and the fact that he tells rude jokes in the morning before your brain's ready to process them. i'm not sure other employers would be so understanding - i could easily see him being labelled as "strange" and then completely marginalised or bullied in more conventional workplaces. i don't know if you ever saw the stuff on social exclusion and mental health from the office of the deputy pm, but the research for that revealed that employers were more likely to consider employing someone with a criminal record than someone with a mental health problem! access to work, work directions, tax credits etc are all really good ideas and i'm sure they help loads of people, but at the end of the day, these schemes are only as good as the people who are delivering them ... get lumbered with a crap DEA and you're just as screwed as you would have been before all of that stuff was introduced, unfortunately.