30 June 2010
Spring Hill Corrections Facility (SHCF) has opened two new classrooms which will deliver painting and plumbing training in concert with the Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec).
The specifically designed and built facility will provide vocational training to support the expansion of prisoner numbers at the prison due to the double bunking initiative. It contains two workshops and two facilities for Corrections Inmate Employment (CIE) courses: a Horticulture course classroom with external planting beds and greenhouses, as well as a Building, Construction, and Allied Trades Skills (BCAT) workshop.
“CIE and Wintec will work together in a new relationship between the two parties through the Trade and Technical Training (T3) programme which specially allocates funding from the Tertiary Education Commission to CIE to provide polytechnic designed and delivered training to prisoners,” said Saen O’Brien the National Prisoner Training Manager.
The Painting course will be offered to twelve prisoners who will work their way through a programme that constitutes the first half of a Painting Apprenticeship.
Prisoners will learn the tools of the trade and hone painting skills to a high level through project work in the specially built painting bays, and on project work in the prison.
Graduates will gain a Wintec Certificate in Pre Trade Painting, which will support their continued employment at the Refurbishment Yard at SHCF as well as help fill local and national skills shortages for qualified painters.
The sixteen Plumbing trainees will experience a wide variety of skills required to be a plumber. The course will teach prisoners general skills such as welding, engineering, metal and plastic forming, as well as specific plumbing skills including setting out and installing plumbing fixtures.
The course is based in the two purpose built workshops where trainees will learn to use hand, power, and heavy tools they will need to use in the trade.
Plumbing trainees will be working towards their National Certificate in Plumbing and can further their skills through employment at the Refurbishment Yard.
Each course takes seventeen weeks to deliver and provides pathways towards National Certificates or comparable qualifications.
The courses aim to reduce recidivism through providing opportunities for prisoners to find employment upon release as well as valuable work, life, and study skills.
For further information contact the Communications Services Desk:
Copyright © Department of Corrections | Feedback and queries email: webmaster@corrections.govt.nz