[Vocational rehabilitation of psychiatrically handicapped people].

The article describes the working concepts of "Lankwitzer Werkstätten", a facility for vocational rehabilitation of persons with (chronic) mental illness. The working concept of this sheltered workshop is crafts- and service-oriented. Some 60 rehabilitees and sheltered workshop employees work in four small "shops". Work structures and everyday organization are somewhat unusual in that they follow general labour market conditions as closely as possible. In their working structures, the sheltered workplaces usually do not differ from workplaces in small crafts enterprises of the general labour market. As far as remuneration is concerned, the workshop is in a position to at least envisage levels of pay that will ensure independence from social assistance supplements if the facility's technical equipment can be kept current and work planning made more efficient. Within the limits of the legal possibilities, and making the most of them, both the diagnostic-prognostic benefits of the entry procedure in the work training process as well as the placement opportunities for rehabilitees in the general labour market are being utilized, with occasionally very successful outcomes.