The Task Force Essay, Research Paper

Selkirk Avenue Family Centre * S.A.F.C. *

(temporary title for project identification)

Rational

Our community is made up of several cultures and within, each culture there are many families. Unfortunately there are families that have become victims of ? Domestic Violence?. There is substantial evidence, supported by research that verifies the existence of this phenomenon, and its effects on the family. Some of the resulting effects are the development of fear, mistrust, abuse, and the continuation of this inappropriate, and some times learned behavior. The existence of these traits, lead to the destruction of individuals, and families. We acknowledge the fact that there are a number of successful individual treatment process, and programs in existence today. We also acknowledge that there are two gaps in social programming, support for children, and more services geared towards the rebuilding of the family unit. The rebuilding of the family unit is the prime objective of the S.A.F.C project. ?Family Restoration and Self-Sufficiency?

Program Focus

The main purpose of the program is to establish a residential resource that will make available culturally sensitive healing and treatment opportunities for family members that have grown up in dysfunctional or violent families. The goal will be to break the cycle of violence and abuse perpetrated within families.

The Family Center is intended to provide families with the opportunity to understand, develop, and strengthen their relationships. Families entering the Family Centre may be co-habitants or could be coming together for the first time after a period of separation. Relationship building will focus on family of procreation or family of origin, depending on the personal life circumstances and commitments of each member.

Each member will be encouraged to develop insights about how she/he relates to others, to family members, to loved ones; the social environment, and to the community. This insight oriented way of looking into one?s own current life situation is based on healing with an emphasis on building healthy relationships, and learning how to grow and strengthen existing interpersonal relationships.

The program will operate on the premise that members from families where relationships are often violent, hostile and painful – need to understand how to avoid creating these types of relationships in their own lives. Consequently, the members, with the assistance of Elders and counselors, will be given the time and opportunity to learn how relationships work (and don?t work) and how to promote healthy ways of interacting at home and in the Community.

It is our expectation that our current families, and the next generation of families (through the children), will be offered an opportunity to strengthen and enjoy a better quality of life through the programs within and linking with other existing programs within the community.

Treatment Program Philosophy, Purpose and Model

The Family will reside at the Family Centre in order to develop interpersonal relationship skills; to learn, grow, heal and re-attach to social support systems (family, surrogate family, extended family, care giving family or support group). Violence within families will be dealt with from a ?relations? perspective. In effect, insight development will focus on learning about healthy relationships, and learn about why relationships become violent and abusive an about how to grow and learn their way out of destructive relationships into more healthy, open communication focused relationships. Elders or others (identified by the family) will be asked to share their wisdom and experience about relationships; (relationships with each other, with partners, with family members, relationships with the Creator, Higher Being)

In effect, when a family resides at the Family Centre, interaction with the healing (natural), environment will produce learning. Learning is at the heart of relationship skill development, growth, healing, culturally appropriate teachings, and communication change.

The family will learn how relations work – how anger, unresolved grief, and abuse affects relationships within their families, and how to learn to interact in more healthy and positive ways. Families will reside at the Family Centre to develop insights about relationships to develop relationship skills to learn about problem solving from a communication/behavioral perspective and to learn from their peers.

The Healing approach based on learning (meaning communication skill development, understanding relationships, traditional teaching, growth) relies on all Family Centre staff, including peers, to be part of the training/learning process. This holistic model calls for all staff to form a stable social support group, in effect, a surrogate family, which provides relationship-learning opportunities to the family. A teaching/learning group will be based on the learning process; the ?group? process will reinforce the relationship development model.

When families come to the Family Centre to become part of the relationship learning process, the work that the Counselors do with the family should be a process within the whole healing system. In effect, the Family Centre as a therapeutic environment provides the context for inclusive relationship development processes.

Services Offered

At the centre of the services will be a residential program. In addition, the Family Centre will offer a variety of day programs to address the needs of the whole family and the community at large as well as the needs of individuals who are not able to attend the residential program.

Services to be delivered may include:

Residential Program

Assessment./Intake

Aftercare/Follow-up

Day Programs/Workshops

Individual Program/Referral

Residential Program

The residential program will have two main focuses:

1.First, through individual session with counselors and group activities, the program will give its participants an opportunity to acknowledge, address and resolve issues and related dysfunctional behaviors arising out of their experience with family violence

2.Second, through a program of life skills, participants will have the opportunity to find a new path and new ways of behaving. They will have the opportunity to learn basis information about who they are and how to live(information that was missed by growing up in a dysfunctional family).

There will be three basic components to the program:

1.Group activities

2.Individual/Family counseling

3.Daily life skills (chores- work programs – cooking, cleaning etc.)

Assessment/Intake:

The program will offer assessment services for both potential participants in the residential program and other community members who wish assistance in dealing with problems related to family violence. Specific forms will be developed along with trained assessment personnel to carry out this service.

Aftercare/Follow-up:

Participants in the residential program will work with program staff to develop a plan for continued healing after their participation in the program at the Centre has finished. The aftercare plan should be in place for a minimum one year following participation at the residential program.

Day Programs/Workshops:

In collaboration with counselors, staff and other resource people, the Family Centre will develop day programs and workshops in the various areas as requested. These initiatives will be designed to deal with issues related to family violence as identified. The Centre staff will provide these programs.

Individual Programs Referral:

While the primary focus of the Family Centre will be the delivery of the above programs, recognition will be given to the fact that not all people will be able to enter these programs. For example, the residential program may have a waiting list, or an appropriate day program may not be available right away. We do not believe that people?s problems have to fit within institutional schedules. Therefore, we plan to offer referral services to individuals as part of the assessment process. To that end, the Assessment/Intake team will find and suggest healing resources to any survivors of family violence or abuse who present themselves or are presented to the program, and who are unable to participant in the residential program.

Areas to be expanded upon:

a)Healing/Treatment approaches to be utilized and who will carry out these functions (nurses, Doctors, counselors, Priests etc)

b)How the program will be promoted

c)Development of a continuum of care (promotion, treatment, rehabilitation etc.)

d)How the program will complement other community/regional programs to help build a local/regional continuum of care

e)What linkages will be developed with other programs or services

f)How the program will benefit the people within the catchment area

g)Target population

h)Admission/Discharge criteria

I)Location of facility

j)Time frame of all programs

k)Organization and management of the program including; development of board of directors/ committee; accountability; lines of authority etc.

l)Human resources: staff and responsibilities

m)Budget focused including program and capital

Objectives and Activities:

Example projected objectives include: (activities to be developed for each objective, this will include all time frames)

a)to secure a facility and perform any tasks required to make it ready for participants

b)to develop programs to be offered at the facility

c)to develop policies and procedures to ensure that the program and facility are safe and conductive to healing

d)to identify develop/hire, and train competent and appropriate advisory and staff

e)to operationalize the residential and day programs

f)to promote the program to participants, agencies and other programs prior to opening

g)to begin assessing residential participants and begin deliver of Day Programs

The following two pages are schematics representing a possible program model and the treatment process