At Fernie House we believe that the standard of care will exceed all expectations for the children and youth that we serve. It is our goal to have a place we would send our children and families, should the need arise. Families, social workers and ministry staff have all remarked on the upbeat and energetic atmosphere of our residential homes. Our care workers mostly have professional child and youth designations or they are university graduates including social worker degrees. Most of our children and youth have struggled in areas of self esteem, getting along with others, making good choices, learning skills and family relations. Lack of trust in adults is often a reality for our kids, we attempt to restore their ability to trust adults and people in authority. We seek to empower the children and youth to reach out for support and insight to get their needs met. Many of our children and youth have significant mental health concerns like depression, conduct, and adjustment and attachment disorders, some that require medication monitoring. Family supports are sometimes in need of improvement for our children and youth. We offer family counselling and parenting for those ready to return home.
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Our CARE model stands for Consent, Accommodation, Relationship and Empowerment.
Consent - Every resident has the right to consent to being cared for, and we seek continuous acceptance from the child and youth to be involved in their care on a daily basis. In other words we earn the right from them to be involved.
Accomodation – Staff use social learning theory to model daily living and expectations. Our Staff completes the expectation of the children and youth when they are unable or unwilling to care for their own needs, we do not punish or consequence for non compliance, we encourage and nurture to build understanding and self reliance. We also endeavouring to engage and teach the child/youth to accept their responsibilities and expectations consistent with their emotional maturity in addition to their developmental age.
Relationships - Staff will build trusting through positive interactions and esteem building interactions. Staff will use basic attachment theory concepts including;
- Identifying a loved one in the child’s life.
- Reassure that we and others care about the their wellbeing;
- Provide something interesting to do every day (from the child’s point of view)
- Make sure the child and youth know that help is available to them. Anytime, anywhere
- Every adult at Fernie will become a positive adult influence in the child/youth’s life
Empowerment - Staff will participate in fostering empowerment daily to promote the exercising of choices by the child/youth. Using Appreciative Inquiry techniques staff will support and encourage the child/youth to gain control and exercise choices in their lives.
We focus on developing a sense of hope and hopefulness for the future with our children and youth.
We think that strengthening the self esteem is key to moving forward in a positive way for our children and youth..
We know that if our children and youth have a strong sense of curiosity they will want to learn and grow.
We ask our children and youth every day;
How do you feel about yourself today?
Did you get along with those around you today?
Did you accomplish what you wanted to do today?
These focussed questions form the basis of our therapeutic relationship with children and youth. From these questions we can explore most of the areas for development that our children and youth want to work on while they are with our program.
At Fernie we provide these clinical areas to support the child and youth goals and needs:
1. Routines - Daily, Weekly, Monthly – sequence of events in daily living
2. Programming - Activities of daily living, purposeful group and individual learning
3. Family - Explore family attitudes and debrief of actual family contacts
4. Community - Link to social / peers, recreation, public presentation
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