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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”.

  Read Verso’s full evaluation report  

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:

finding suitable properties for keeping a variety of domesticated, farm animals

employment of highly trained staff members with a knowledge of animal assisted therapies

carefully selecting and placing young people in groups

assigning appropriate staff members to individual young people

low turnover of staff and young people

ongoing training and psychological support for staff

sympathetic farm management (where not a qualified person)

securing financial support from external agencies

continued promotion of The Good Life Farm.

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Principal, Chum Creek Primary School

Lesley and the staff at Good Life Farm build a wonderful rapport with participating students and this facilitates open discussion about appropriate behaviours and the effects of inappropriate behaviours on others.

Participant Parent

W’s involvement in the Farm this term has certainly been beneficial.

He is finding ways to deal with his anger and anxiety that has impacted his ability to go to school the past few years.

He is in a much happier space and the consistent approach farm has provided him has improved his self-esteem and wellbeing.

I wish to thank all the Good Life Farm staff for their hard efforts.

Participant Parent

The impact of the program has meant that S has been able to build an identity of self and to connect with people from a strengths based perspective – solid ground.

S found the environment at the Farm a very safe place which I am sad to say he has not had at school or in some family environments.

This term I have seen S grow into a young person who is taking some first steps into the world such as his first job.

Prior to his attendance at the Farm, his experience was too overwhelming for him to make sense of it.

S has a direction forward and concrete experiences of kindness, respect, excellence and commitment that he gained through his time at the Farm.

It takes a village to raise a child – and the Farm has been part of that village for S.

Participant Parent

I want to thank you for all that you have done to help J become the amazing person that he is. He shared with me your reflections on him and his journey at The Good Life Farm and it brought me to tears to think how much pain he was in before he found you.

I am so grateful for the loving kindness, support and space you and the animals have shown him. I am so proud of my young man and know that moments he shared with you are going to help him for the rest of his life.

In a super stressful time where we often didn’t know what to do next, he found a place at Good Life Farm where he could recover his sense of self and heal from the traumas and misunderstanding and school. I am excited for him to face the world with all that you have helped him know about himself.

Thank you for all that you do.

Assistance Principle, Healesville Primary School

“In our experience, students attending the program have become more engaged with school, developed greater resilience and strategies to assist with conflict resolution and recognition of the impact their behaviour has on other people.”

We acknowledge and respect the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, the traditional custodians of this land since time immemorial. We are learning that the land is not ours to own, but to look after and that if we listen, we may hear in it the calling of the eternal Spirit. Responding to this call, we commit ourselves to work for justice, reconciliation and care of the earth.