CORE SERVICES

Vocational Rehabilitation Services

"Illness is just part of our life, not all. There are plenty of interesting and meaningful events for us to explore.”

Nang A number of colorful art pieces with unique figures were placed on the desk of Lo Yip Nang (Nang). This talented artist was diagnosed as having autistic features. At the same time, he was a lucky star as he had his own way to communicate his thoughts and feelings towards the world.

In 2005, Nang had the first contact with clay. At first, he learned to make simple clay accessories. With enhanced skills, he started to create more complicated pattern using clay. Instructor in sheltered workshop discovered his passion towards colors, lines and pictures composition, and thus, sending Nang different referencing materials and platform for creation, to develop his clay creation talents. The road towards the colorful clay world was built since then.

In 2007, Nang won as champion in clay competition of "Hong Kong 7th Abilympics” which induced his dream to hold a solo clay exhibition to share with the public his clay passion. His dream came true in 2011 that his first solo clay exhibition was held in Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (JCCAC). He received numerous awards in many competitions both in local and overseas.

Nang has created more than a thousand pieces of clay arts until now. Clay is Nang’s language.

Sheltered Workshop

History/Introduction

New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association operates four sheltered workshops, including New Life Farm, Kwai Shing Sheltered Workshop, Tin King Sheltered Workshop and New Life Building Sheltered Workshop. Sheltered workshops provide people in recovery of mental illness and people with disabilities with a working environment specially designed for vocational training through an income-generating work process. Community-based integrated vocational training facilitates the development of potentials and confidence of service users to prepare them for open employment and community reintegration. Sheltered workshop is a social service without an employer-employee relationship between the service provider and the service users.

Our Aims

Grounded on "Care for People” and "Recovery-oriented” practices, we aim at:

Providing work training in a planned environment including workshops, farms and community sites;
Offering opportunities for work adjustment and advancement with the ultimate goal of enabling service users to attain supported or open employment where possible;
Developing and sustaining their social and economic potentials;
Enhancing holistic well-being through person-centered care planning, diversified activities and vocational training.

Milestone

It is not uncommon for PIR to experience adjustment issues in meeting work related demands. They are in need of rebuilding their working habits before they could make a jump in the open employment market. We have developed both agricultural and industrial Sheltered Workshop services since 1968. Back then, we rented a farmland next to Castle Peak Hospital and established New Life Farm, which was the first and only agricultural Sheltered Workshop in Hong Kong. The Farm provides PIR with agricultural work training under a refreshing and open environment, and assists them in fitting-in the society again and achieves the goal of self-reliance.

In early years, apart from farming plants and corps, the work trades of the Farm included piggery, pigeons breeding, brick production and construction work. Later, the Association identified the market demand of organic food and converted the Farm into an organic farm in 2000, to provide training including but not limited to organic farming, vegetable processing and horticulture for PIR. The Farm was successfully accredited with Organic Certification from the Hong Kong Organic Resource Centre Certification Limited in 2005 and had also obtained Organic Certification from the Hong Kong Organic Certification Centre in 2006. On top of the above, the Farm had also acquired the adjacent farmland with an area of 4.1 acres from the Government; which was then developed into Eco-tourism and provided different types of work training for PIR, like training in farm tour guidance, tea-house serving, shop keeping, handiwork art and activities guidance etc. At the same time, the Farm also became the very first Social Enterprise in Hong Kong to provide Eco-Tourism service which promotes environmental conservation and healthy life style to the public.

The aim of establishing the Sheltered Workshop was to provide PIRs with work training that incorporated the elements of productivity, work remuneration and social rehabilitation in the hope of nurturing their working habits and realizing their working potential whereas the ultimate goal rests on enabling them to join the Supported Employment Service or open employment. Our first industrial Sheltered Workshop was set up at a male halfway house in 1968. In light of the development in Hong Kong economy, the Sheltered Workshop has also transformed from material processing and packaging to a production mode that is more diversified, more adaptive to the economic development and more attuned to the different needs of PIR. Nowadays, we have 3 industrial sheltered workshops providing training such as handicraft production, sewing, wood work, letter processing, packaging, organic soybean product production, organic product processing, cleaning, catering and retailing training etc. Each sheltered workshop has a capacity to serve 140 to 190 PIRs.

Our Services

With a staff team comprising of managers, social workers, nurses, workshop instructors, etc., the sheltered workshops provide recovery-oriented service, diversified approaches and interventions. We provide the following services:

Community integrated vocational training in a specially designed work environment;
Multidimensional income-generating vocational training activities including packaging, car beauty services, sewing, wood work production, handicraft, retailing, catering, organic food production, organic vegetables and herbs planting etc.;
Work habit training, work assessment, provision of referrals;
Various developmental, psychosocial and well-being activities.

Vocational Rehabilitation Services Introduction Video

Service Target

Sheltered workshops provide services for people in recovery of mental illness or people with other disabilities with the following criteria:

Aged 15 or above;
Capable of basic self-care;
Stable medical and psychiatric conditions;
Not assessed with severe intellectual disabilities;
Demonstrate to have work motivation/ability through pre-admission intake assessment;
No history of severe acts of violence, infectious diseases, excessive drinking, drug abuse, pathological gambling or other severe behavioral problem in the past 6 months.

Application and Exit of Service

Applicants may approach doctors or social workers for referral through the Central Referral System for Rehabilitation Services operated by Social Welfare Department. Social workers of sheltered workshops will regularly discuss with service users on their progress and devise a discharge plan according to their needs.

Fee Charging

Free of charge

Contact Us

Service Unit	Tel	Fax	Email
Kowloon
New Life Building Sheltered Workshop 2/F-3/F, New Life Building, 332 Nam Cheong Street, Kowloon.	2778 6023	2776 7612	nlbsw@nlpra.org.hk
New Territories
Kwai Shing Sheltered Workshop Units 101-104, 106 & 108, Block 9 and Units 101-118, Block 10, Kwai Shing West Estate, Kwai Chung, New Territories	2428 8711	2485 1833	ksw@nlpra.org.hk
Jockey Club Sun Workshop(Tin King) Units 9-24, G/F, Block 10, Tin Lok House, Tin King Estate, Tuen Mun, New Territories	2466 0068	2464 6960	jcswtk@nlpra.org.hk
New Life Farm 33 San Fuk Road, Tuen Mun, New Territories	2461 8385	2456 3201	nlf@nlpra.org.hk