Southampton Special Purpose Workshop

Southampton Special Purpose Workshop is an Independent Day Service for adults with special needs. Formed in 1993 by Jim Parker as an alternative to the traditional day services.

SSPW (Southampton Special Purpose Workshop) offers social, educational training in a work type environment, appropriate, well structured high quality support is available to enhance skills and confidence needed for a more independent lifestyle.

Since its inception, the client base has steadily grown and now provides for about 60+ service users. Some users have been with SSPW. since the start of the service.

Daily attendance varies between 15 and 25.

All service user placements are funded, generally by Social Services, direct payments or sometimes from Care home budgets etc.

SSPW (Southampton Special Purpose Workshop) is divided into 6 main groups Woodwork, Garage, Shop, Craft, Farm & Leisure. Users are encouraged to take part in all aspects of SSPW. most users will generally find something that they are interested in after a few sessions.

SSPW (Southampton Special Purpose Workshop) operates an ‘open house’ policy and all agencies or funding bodies are free to visit at any time, although pre-booking a visit is advisable.

The Social Services areas that currently employ these services are: Southampton, Hampshire, Portsmouth and Bournemouth.