The Bridge Project is a community-based alternative to custody for adult males with a history of offending.  It serves the Greater Dublin Metropolitan Area and is based in Dublin city centre.  Bridge is a limited company with charitable status and is overseen by a voluntary Board comprising of inter-agency representatives including the Probation Service and City of Dublin ETB – both core funders for the project.  Participants can be referred directly from the Courts, the prison service or Probation Officers.

Bridge provides a range of services to participants that are delivered by a multi-disciplinary team including Probation Officers, education staff, key workers, Community Employment personnel as well as volunteers.  The core phased progression programme in Bridge is known as ‘Change Works’ and provides a number of options for each participant to avail of.  Based on a comprehensive needs assessment, an individual learning programme is put in place for each participant which includes some mandatory and elective modules.

Phase One of Change Works involves one to one work and is designed to remove the obstacles that may prevent participants from engaging fully in group work sessions in Phase Two – the educational component.  Phase Three is all about progression and includes the possibility of securing a place on our in-house Community Employment scheme, engagement in our social enterprise initiatives as well as progression onto further education or employment.

City of Dublin ETB and project staff work with participants on an individual basis to provide the advice, information and support necessary to enable participants access training, education or employment.  All participants have access to one-to-one literacy tuition from the time they are accepted onto our programme. In addition, an education-based CE scheme enables participants to work on FETAC accredited modules in Communications, Maths, Food and Nutrition, Computers and other courses.

For further information on Bridge go to www.bridge.ie or contact call 01 8780901.