MODEL OF CARE
VERSO CONSULTING PTY LTD
"For most of the participants, their Good Life Farm experience (encompassing staff interaction, time in nature and caring for animals) enabled them to gain confidence, life skills and strategies to manage stressors".
"Evidence suggests after two terms, many participants have developed the skills and confidence to better engage in educational and social settings".
Our practice
The Good Life Farm Model of Care is aligned with well documented animal assisted therapies and the associated benefits of intimate contact with nature.
In practice our Model of Care integrates recognized theories and approaches that suggest that building unconditional relationships with animals in a natural or farm setting can assist young people in developing emotionally healthy relationships.
The resulting integrated Model of Care offers young people aged 7-17 programs designed to improve their mental and emotional health, wellbeing and personal development.
The distinctive difference in our program is that it goes beyond the usual animals (dogs and horses) and situations in which animal-assisted interventions take place.
The Good Life Farm Model of Care takes place on a small mixed farm enabling young people to develop relationships with a variety of animals that suit their psychological and temperamental needs. They are encouraged to build reciprocal relationships with the animals in which they learn to care by following feeding and nurturing routines the farm animals need to survive.
The farm is also a productive entity from which vegetables, fruit and animals can be harvested for food, further forging an understanding of the web of life.
The farm activities spill over into activities among the flora and fauna in the surrounding wild environment. This wider learning experience contributes to their appreciation of their own links with nature and to their understanding of the link between wild nature and farm domestication.
Young people
The young people who are referred to Good Life Farm programs come with a range of physical, emotional and psychological challenges that have led to low self-esteem, anxiety and depression. Their socialisation and educational skills have often been disrupted and are poorly developed. Many of them are unable to develop lasting and positive attachments.
By entering a mixed farm setting in which they are encouraged to explore, positive social behaviours can develop among the young people, experiential learning can take place, and resilience and self-esteem can increase. Ultimately, positive, meaningful and lasting relationships can occur.
Staff
The Good Life Farm offers the opportunity for young people to develop behavioural regulation, social relatedness, affective regulation, physical skills and cognitive development through providing them with a stable, safe and natural environment supported by highly trained staff who provide unconditional positive regard, genuineness and empathetic understanding.
All our staff are trained in trauma informed practices.
Programs
The Good Life Farm offers a program called our life and social skills program. This a semi-structured 10-week small group wellbeing program. Young people attend the farm for one day a week for ten weeks. A typical day will include between five and 10 young people and up to five qualified staff to provide each young person with the appropriate physical and emotional support.
Young people with additional needs can request one on one support. This provides the young person with a dedicated staff member and a program that is tailored to individual needs.
Young people may also access Dare to Dream Psychology services located at the Good Life Farm.
Effectiveness of the model
The effectiveness of this model and its future replication will rely on: