Working wonders

A Flemish agency helps get people with mental health problems back into the workforce
© Angela Chambers

Getting people with mental health problems into – or back into – the workforce is now a key focus of VDAB, Flanders’ jobs and training agency. This year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which regularly analyses data from its member countries, released the review “Mental Health and Work: Belgium”, which found that the relationships VDAB has developed with health professionals and other partners in the programme is “promising” and is setting an example for similar projects to form elsewhere.

Going from working in a high-demand profession to a hospital stay for severe depression can happen to even the most driven, confident employees. Katrien Deboodt of De Haan on the Flemish coast is a well-educated businesswoman. When she became pregnant with her son in 2007, this change, along with stress from her work, caused Deboodt to have an “emotional and psychological crash,” including thoughts of suicide.

Angela Chambers
(March 27, 2013)

De Gelder found guilty and responsible for his actions

The 24-year-old has been sentenced by a jury to life in prison
© POOL/Reuters/Corbis

A jury in Ghent last week took just over four hours of deliberation to find Kim De Gelder guilty of four murders and 25 charges of attempted murder. De Gelder, who stabbed two babies and a caregiver to death in a crèche in Dendermonde in 2009, was given four life sentences and 25 sentences of 20 years.

During the month-long trial, De Gelder never denied that he entered the crèche armed with a knife and an axe, striking out at anyone within reach. One week earlier, De Gelder had murdered an elderly woman in her home in Vrasene in order, he said, to still the voices in his head urging him to kill.

Alan Hope
(March 27, 2013)