How to deal with the Work Programme

How to deal with the Work Programme (a Sociological Perspective):

Avoidance:
This is the most common and natural reaction. The idea is that the problem will go away. It won't and not turning up for appointments will get you sanctioned and makes everything worse. The idea is the authority will pick on someone else. It is a short term psychological comfort zone and unsuccessful in practical terms.

Submission:
Taking on board the rules and following like a mouse. This scheme might be highly successful but it is only suited to certain naive personalities. This can be very upsetting if the client follows the rules and then gets accused of not complying. Grounds for complaint then.

Competition:
Fighting them every inch of the way and with your knowledge and their inadequacies you win your point. But it goes nowhere.

Collaboration:
This I decided was the best way (second thoughts now) and I would agree in principle with the motives. This is the best solution, but tension occurs if the untrained (important point) adviser is punitive and does not want to play his part. Solution possible if there are sufficient jobs around.
Danger: if they change the rules. This would be grounds for complaint.

Compromise:
The power balance and rules do not allow this solution with an untrained adviser/negotiator. The client will get parked or sanctioned as unhelpful and will have to make his own way in the world. I think this would be the best option for me. Painful tension.

Passive-Aggressive:

This is not out of my personal ken. I have seen this reaction when a person has a certain personality trait. It seems like a mental illness and they are out of control in a bad way. Some psychologists think this is even normal! The person committed suicide.
With clumsy incompetent behaviour of untrained advisors may quickly reach this situation.
They deal with released criminals and may themselves be in danger. Or the fellow clients at the WP could be in danger as well. There is no way of telling these nutters from their personal appearance.

Beware.

There is an important rider. Some people who have a mental breakdown (for want of a better word) caused by abuse or trauma or head injury, brain illness, sustained bullying. This means that the "tough love" approach may exacerbate an underlying condition and cause a worsening of their life quality. These are hidden illnesses and are outside the scope of recruitment advisers.